Autonomy and Minority Groups: A Right in International Law

In the United Kingdom, various degrees of autonomy were accorded to Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.5 NATO warplanes undertook a bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in order to force the latter to confer greater autonomy to Kosovo.6 The European Court of Human Rights has talked of a "democratic restructuring" without destroying the territorial integrity of Turkey with respect to its Kurdish population, 7 and that a group of persons might call for autonomy or even secession of part of a country's territory, but that would not automatically justify banning the group's assemblies.8 And yet, despite the above, there is no express, extant right to autonomy in international law for groups within States.International law does accord a right of self-determination to peoples.On the other hand, States owe a much weaker obligation to persons belonging to minorities; they shall not be denied the right to enjoy their culture in community with other members of the group.However, this distinction between peoples and minorities in international instruments is a purely legal creation, especially when no definition of either type of entity has proved possible.Since there is no definition, then no one can deny that a particular group might form a minority within the State and, at the same time, qualify as a people:[The] issues of self-determination, the treatment of minorities, and the status of indigenous populations, are the same, and the segregation of [these] topics is an impediment to fruitful work.The rights and claims of groups with their own cultural histories and identities are in principle the samesion No. 2001-454 D.C., available at