14th Session of the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues Item 3 | Legal and institutional framework: the human rights of minorities and conflict prevention STATEMENT OF MR MOHAMMAD SHAHABUDDIN Chair in International Law and Human Rights Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, UK ***** Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Let me also thank Mr. Fernand de Varennes, Special Rapporteur on minority issues for inviting me as a speaker. Thanks also to his team for all the background work. (1) Group Rights: In 2019, Minority Rights Group International conducted a major global study on ‘Peoples under Threat’. The data-set reveals that of the 115 countries that the study ranked by level of threat, all but 43 faced conflicts involving claims to self-determination. The traditional human rights framework, primarily focused on individual rights, is not always equipped to address and accommodate these demands for selfdetermination, even within the territorial confines of the existing state. But we need to note that mere absence of individual human rights, however important, does not lead to the demands for self-determination. Mere guarantee of individual rights would not mitigate those demands either. Even in some advanced Western democracies, where there is robust legal architecture guaranteeing individual freedom, equality, and non-discrimination, groups continue their demand for selfdetermination, or even, secession. Invariably all Peace Accords, in the aftermath of violent ethnic conflicts, are premised upon a series of political arrangements, including power-sharing, consociational democracy, federalism, and so on. These measures are the direct outcome of prolonged violent conflicts and are driven by pragmatic needs. Numerous studies suggest that incorporation of these measures beforehand can indeed prevent the likelihood of those violent conflicts. Since the theme of this year’s Forum is conflict prevention, my first recommendation would be a more robust and sincere engagement with group rights by re-imagining the dominant liberal individualist framework of human rights. 1