High Commissioner on National Minorities

HCNM approach to conflict prevention

The mandate of the High Commissioner describes the HCNM as an instrument for early warning and conflict prevention, having available a variety of tools and techniques.
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Education

It is the HCNM's experience that ensuring educational opportunities for all, taking into account the rights and needs of all ethnic groups - majorities and minorities - is one of the best ways to prevent the emergence of inter-ethnic tensions.
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Language

Language is an issue often at the centre of public debate in almost all the societies where the HCNM is engaged. The HCNM assists states in finding ways to satisfy the language rights and needs of different ethnic communities, both majority and minority.
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Participation

Full opportunities for the equal enjoyment of the human rights of persons belonging to minorities entails their effective participation in decision-making processes, especially when decision particularly concern them.
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Minorities and media

Access to the media in one's own language is important for maintaining cultural identity, sharing information and exercising one's right of freedom of expression.
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Policing

The police have considerable power to shape the attitudes and public perception of persons belonging to national minorities about the rule of law in the state and its capacity to act in a just, legitimate and accountable way.
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Delegates of the Romanian-Ukrainian Commission are greeted by students from a Ukrainian-language school in Romania's Maramures region, 4 June 2007. The High Commissioner advises the two countries in monitoring the situation of their kin minorities. (OSCE/Klemens Buescher)

• FEATURE: Q&A: Preventing ethnic conflict
  Rolf Ekeus, OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, shares his views on how protecting national minorities contributes to peace and prosperity.
• FEATURE: South East European University opens in Tetovo
  On 20 November the South East European University was officially opened in Tetovo, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

High Commissioner's address at the UN Seminar on Operational Conflict Prevention

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Address by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Rolf Ekeus "Overcoming the Reluctance to Conflict Prevention", New York

Preventive diplomacy, Muller lecture

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OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities speech, discussing conflict preventation and quiet diplomacy, The Hague

Lecture by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Rolf Ekeus

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Lecture at the Schweizerische Institut für Auslandsforschung "International Conflict and Majorities", Zürich