Antal Berkes

State Succession and Minority Rights: a Case Study of the Dissolution of the Former Yugoslavia Antal Berkes

Dissolution and separation of States especially threaten minorities, whose protection serves not only the interests of the successor State, but also that of the international community. As a minimum, successor States should continue the human rights treaties to which their predecessor was party. Furthermore, the international community imposed on the successor States of the Former Yugoslavia a series of additional obligations protecting minorities which largely exceeded the minority rights standards of the Cold War period. The international instruments imposed on the new States contributed to a crystallization of a higher minimum standard of minority protection which shall bind all new States tending to be legitimized.