to be different. I recognized that in order to achieve this, we have to promote what I call pluralistic integration, which I shall soon explain. The year 1989 was a very special year in European history – it was the end of the Cold War. But there were signals of danger everywhere. In that same year I was requested by the Sub-Commission to prepare a study exploring peaceful and constructive solutions to situations involving minorities. My work coincided with an ethnic explosion of violence in several parts of the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, in Africa (Rwanda) and in Asia (Sri Lanka). When I examined these situations I noticed that many of the conflicts were driven by what I called ethnic conflict entrepreneurs, persons who exploited for their own political gains the insecurity and bewilderness of people during political and economic transitions. On the other side I also recognized that there were many human rights defenders at work, people of the civil society who sought to function as bridge builders between the different ethnic groups. But it was clear that standards had to be developed that could clarify the rights of minorities in relation to the dominant majorities. What has been dominant in my concern has been the need to reconcile equality and diversity. In my conclusions to the study on peaceful solutions to situations involving minorities, I argued that that the solutions should consist of three elements: Firstly to promote equality in the common domain – that is in all areas of social, economic and political life; secondly, to ensure space for pluralism in togetherness, which meant a need to recognize the diversity of the different components of society and their languages and cultures within the overall framework of universal human rights; and thirdly, to allow where necessary some territorial decentralization when that could facilitate effective participation by minorities, provided that the different territories were all governed on the basis of demos (equal participation), not by ethnos (giving priorities to one ethnic group over others). The major steps forward were taken within what was then called the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, during its meeting on the human dimension of security, in Copenhagen in 1990. This was the first time the rights of national minorities were formulated. It was followed by the adoption by the United Nations of its Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic minorities, in 1992; in that year also the OSCE established the Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities, and in 1995 the Council of Europe adopted its framework convention on the rights of national minorities. In 1995 the Sub-Commission established its working group on minorities, and I was elected its chairman, a function I had for ten years. It was during those years I worked on the Commentary, presenting revised drafts at each session and benefitting from intensive discussion by representative of governments, nongovernmental organisations, and a whole range of interested scholars which prepared incisive analytical discussion papers for the working group. Second, some words on the points highlighted in the Commentary. The commentary observes that the Declaration has a wider scope than the standards established under the Council of Europe or the Organisation on Conference and Security in Europe. These documents refer solely to national minorities, whereas the United Nations minority declaration in