Explanatory Note to the Recommendations on National Minorities in Inter-State Relations I. General principles 1. Sovereignty comprises the jurisdiction of the State over its territory and population, and is constrained only by the limits established by international law. No State may exercise jurisdiction over the population or part of the population of another State within the territory of that State without its consent. The principle of State sovereignty is a cornerstone of international law, as codified in Articles 1 and 2 of the Charter of the United Nations (hereinafter: “UN Charter”) and reaffirmed in several other international documents. These include the 1975 CSCE Helsinki Final Act (Principle IV), the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe, and, in particular with regard to national minorities, the 1990 CSCE Document of the Copenhagen Meeting on the Human Dimension (hereinafter: “Copenhagen Document”) (paragraph 37), the 1995 Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe (hereinafter: “FCNM”) (Preamble and Article 21), the 1992 UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (hereinafter: “UN Declaration on Minorities”) (Article 8 (4)), and the 1994 EU Concluding Document of the Inaugural Conference for a Pact on Stability in Europe (hereinafter: “Stability Pact”) (paragraph 1.6). International law provides for extraterritorial jurisdiction for specific cases and in certain situations, but in a restricted form. Recommendations on National Minorities in Inter-State Relations 9