Guidelines to Assist National Minority Participation in the Electoral Process II. Page: 2 BACKGROUND TO THE LUND RECOMMENDATIONS The HCNM is the OSCE’s principal mechanism for the prevention of minority related conflicts. As an instrument of conflict prevention to act at the earliest stage, the HCNM works closely with governments and minority groups to ensure that government policies respect international standards in this area and that effective practices are adopted. The HCNM has identified certain recurrent issues which have become the subject of his attention in terms of their potential for conflict within States. In particular, education and use of language were identified as potential sources of conflict within the OSCE states. In order to develop appropriate government policies in respect of these two issues, the HCNM developed two sets of recommendations to serve as references for policy and law-makers in those States. Those recommendations are: • • The Hague Recommendations Regarding the Education Rights of National Minorities (1996)6 The Oslo Recommendations Regarding the Linguistic Rights of National Minorities (1998)7 In 1998 the HCNM identified a third source of potential conflict - the participation of national minorities in the governance of states. In order to get the views and experiences of OSCE participating States in this area, the HCNM and the ODIHR convened a conference of all OSCE States and certain international organisations entitled: “Governance and Participation: Integrating Diversity”.8 The Conference Chairman's Statement noted: “the desirability of ‘concrete follow up activities’ including the further elaboration of the various concepts and mechanisms of good governance with the effective participation of minorities, leading to an integration of diversity in the state”. Arising from the Chairman's Statement, the Government of Sweden offered to fund a group of independent experts to meet in Lund, Sweden, to prepare recommendations on the effective participation of national minorities in the governance of democratic States. Those recommendations have become known as the “Lund Recommendations”. The purpose of the Lund Recommendations, like the Hague and Oslo Recommendations, is to encourage OSCE participating States to alleviate, through adoption of specific measures, tensions involving national minorities and, thus, to serve the ultimate conflict prevention goal of the HCNM. The basic premises of the Lund Recommendations are: • • • 6 7 8 States will respect and implement their human rights obligations, in particular, the freedom from discrimination; the object of human rights instruments is to ensure the full and free development of the individual human personality under conditions of equality; the object of good democratic government is to serve the needs and interests of all who live and reside under it; and For the full text of The Hague Recommendations, together with some scholarly analysis, see the special issue of the International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, Volume 4, No. 2, 1996/97. For the full text of the Oslo Recommendations, together with some scholarly analysis, see the special issue of the International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, Volume 6, No. 3, 1999. The Conference was held at Locarno in October 1998, hosted by the Swiss Confederation.