• • • • Article 5 of the UNESCO Convention Against Discrimination in Education. Paragraph 34 of the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE. Article 4 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. Article 14 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. To varying degrees, all of these instruments declare the right of minorities to maintain their collective identity through the medium of their mother tongue. This right is exercised, above all, through education. These same instruments, however, underline that the right to maintain the collective identity through the minority language must be balanced by the responsibility to integrate and participate in the wider national society. Such integration requires the acquisition of a sound knowledge of both that society and the State language(s). The promotion of tolerance and pluralism is also an important component of this dynamic. The international human rights instruments that make reference to minority language education remain somewhat vague and general. They make no specific reference to degrees of access nor do they stipulate which levels of mother tongue education should be made available to minorities and by what means. Such concepts as "adequate opportunities" to be taught the minority language or to receive instruction in this language, as outlined in article 14 of the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, should be considered in the light of other elements. These include the necessity of beneficial conditions facilitating the preservation, maintenance and development of language and culture as outlined in article 5 of the same Convention or the requirement to take the necessary measures to protect the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of national minorities as stipulated in paragraph 33 of the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE. Irrespective of the level of access which may be afforded by States, it should not be established in an arbitrary fashion. States are required to give due consideration to the needs of national minorities as these are consistently expressed and demonstrated by the communities in question. 10 The Hague Recommendations - October 1996