This article provides an overview of the work of the osce hcnm on issues of access to justice for national minorities, based on a review of relevant thematic recommendations, country-specific advice, official statements, as well as other activities, projects and engagements of the hcnm. The article analyses how the hcnm’s specific mandate – as a political institution tasked to prevent inter-ethnic conflict, operating primarily through “quiet diplomacy” – has shaped its approach to human and minority rights, and to access to justice issues in particular. The overview shows that throughout the years, access to justice has become a recurrent, if at times tangential, theme for the institution. Overall, the article seeks to distil the general hcnm approach to access to justice issues as it was conveyed through a variety of thematic recommendations and guidelines, specific advice and other relevant engagements, undertaken in the course of the two-and-a-half decades of the institution’s existence.
Effective Minority Participation as a Balancing Act: What Role for the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities?
