Conceptualization and operationalization of minorities in the practice of UN treaty bodies

MINCOOP is an interdisciplinary and intersectoral project that focuses on the conceptualization and operationalization of minorities under universal international law, with the ultimate purpose to improve the legal protection of traditional (national, ethnic, religious, linguistic) minorities and persons belonging to them. The project contributes to a growing area of minority studies, setting out from the recognition that international law routinely operates with the concept of minority when providing standards for the recognition of group-specific rights or protection from discrimination, without actually offering definitions on the protected groups (conceptualization) or membership criteria therein (operationalization). This in not merely an unresolved theoretical issue, but a practical deficiency with crucial importance for the protection of minorities. Namely, ambiguity in the relevant terms hampers the achievement of policy goals, and the potential for abuse easily leads to further discrimination and marginalization. In order to give definite answers to the problems of conceptualization and operationalization, the project proposes to carry out an up-to-date, systematic and comparative analysis of the monitoring materials of the ten UN human rights treaty bodies thus filling an important gap in scholarship. The project follows a mixed-method research design including quantitative, computer-assisted content analysis and qualitative legal analysis, as well as case studies and field research (interviews) conducted in Slovenia. The research project will not only inform the theoretical debate on minority rights and provide recommendations for policy-making, but also intends to raise awareness of the pressing issues of traditional minorities among the general public, promoting more tolerant, inclusive societies.