MINELRES: ECMI Newsletter No.25, April 2003

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: William McKinney <mckinney@ECMI.DE> 


ECMI Newsletter No. 25
April 2003

Dear Subscribers,

We are delighted to present the first ECMI Newsletter in a new format. 
In an effort to bring you even more information about our activities in
the coming month as well as reports about what we did in the current
month, the editor, Mr. William McKinney (mckinney@ecmi.de), has begun to
develop and implement new ideas for presenting to you all the newsworthy
developments at the Centre.  At the same time, the various features you
have grown accustomed to will remain, including reports on new ECMI
publications (in-house publications can, as always, be downloaded at
http://www.ecmi.de/doc/public.html) and library acquisitions (for the
on-line catalogue see http://ecmidb.aboutmedia.de).

A new regular feature will introduce (that is why it is called "We
introduce �") new projects and inform you of major developments and
results of ongoing action-oriented and research projects.  A section
entitled "staff news" will introduce new staff members, including
visiting researchers, to highlight the variety of disciplines and
interests represented at any given time at the Centre.  Apart from 
that, the "staff news" will inform you about significant personal
achievements of our research and professional staff (of which there are
many).  An additional feature in future issues you will no doubt be
interested in will present the news from our regional offices (currently
in Skopje, www.ecmingonet.org.mk, and Prishtina,
http://www.ecmikos.org/).

Very truly yours,

Dr. Alexander H. E. Morawa
Senior Research Associate
morawa@ecmi.de
 
CONTENTS
-------------------------------
1. Upcoming Activities and Events in May 2003
2. Highlights in April 2003
3. We introduce ... the Minority Ombudsman Project at ECMI
4. Staff News
5. New acquisitions of the ECMI Library
-------------------------------




---------------------------
1. Upcoming Activities and Events in May 2003
---------------------------

Study visit of Kosovars to Denmark, "The Danish-German borderland
experience and ethnic divide in Kosovo".
Hoejskolen Oestersoen of Aabenraa, Denmark, in collaboration with the
Nansen dialogue initiative of Mitrovica, Kosovo. ECMI training sessions:
"The Normative Framework for Protecting the Rights of National and
Ethnic Minorities, in Particular in Europe" (Dr Alexander H. E. Morawa);
"Power-sharing and autonomy in regulating minority-majority relations"
(Graham Holliday), 2 May.

---------------------------
2. Highlights in April 2003
---------------------------

ECMI sponsored panel on "Ethnopolitics and Elections", Association for
the Study of Nationalism Annual Convention, New York. Chair Graham
Holliday (ECMI), Stefan Wolff (University of Bath), Florian Bieber
(ECMI), Eben Friedman (ECMI). Discussant: Shale Horowitz (University of
Wisconsin)
 
Panel presentation, "Minorities and Conflict in Postcommunist States:
The Role of International Norms and Governance", Association for the
Study of Nationalism, Annual Convention, New York. Chair: Sally Cummings
(University of Edinburgh), Neil Melvin (University of Leeds/HCNM OSCE),
Gwendolyn Sasse (London School of Economics/Free University, Berlin),
Graham Holliday (ECMI).
Discussant: James Hughes (London School of Economics), 5 April.

Launch of "Schools of Politics Initiative", collaborative project
between the Council of Europe and the ECMI Kosovo Civil Society
Initiative, ECMI Kosovo, 20 April.

Guest lecture on "Setting Standards for the Protection of Minorities in
Europe" at Freie Universit�t Berlin, Osteuropa-Institut, Berlin (Dr
Alexander H. E. Morawa), 30 April.


---------------------------
3. We introduce ... the Minority Ombudsman Project at ECMI
---------------------------

The Ombudsman Project supports the strengthening of minority protection
through the use of specialized minority Ombudsman institutions. It aims
for the creation of new specialist Ombudsman institutions for the
protection of national minorities as well as the effective support of
such bodies where they already exist, including specialized sections
devoted to minority issues within the structures of existing national
Ombudsman institutions.

The project will realize these goals in three ways: 

1. Providing Expert Advice
Support of the national legislative and executive bodies of relevant
states in the establishment of specialized minority Ombudsman
institutions. ECMI, in close cooperation with the OSCE High Commissioner
on National Minorities (HCNM)and the Office for Democratic Institutions
and Human Rights of the OSCE (ODIHR), will offer its expertise and
experience to national authorities that are considering establishing
such independent institutions. ECMI will also provide expert advice to
authorities that are currently drafting basic legislation for such
institutions or who are in the initial stages of the practical
implementation of such legislation. 

2. Making Resources Available
ECMI will assist with the establishment of specialized Ombudspersons for
ethnic minority issues by making available to the responsible national
authorities sources of information, both legal and practice-oriented,
relevant to creating a specialized institution, such as, amongst other
things, its organizational form, the competencies it is to be given and
the method of its integration into the constitutional structure of the
country in question. These resources will be compiled and analyzed by
experts at ECMI and, together with information about best practices
derived from the experiences of already existing (West) European
Ombudsman institutions, will be made publicly available, predominantly
in the form of documentation accessible
through the Internet. 

3. A Specialized Ombudsperson's Network
Existing and emerging Ombudspersons and their associates will be linked
together in a Network. Information relevant to the tasks and operations
of minority ombudspersons, including their rules of procedure and
relevant practice in both the handling of individual complaints and in
legislative initiatives will be shared by the project partners through �
a meeting of  the Network partner institutions to be held in October
2003 � regular structured exchanges of experiences and information
between Network members � online documentation (see point 2). This
information will also be made available to other relevant institutions
and interested members of the general public.

Last but not least, the project aims also at providing specialized
training for staff of the newly established institutions by way of two
one-week training seminars.

Contact: Project Director: Dr. Alexander H. E. Morawa, Senior Research
Associate, morawa@ecmi.de


---------------------------
4. Staff News
---------------------------

Ms. Elisabeth Alber has joined ECMI in April as a research assistant
(internship program) for the duration of three months.  Elisabeth is a
scholar in international relations and diplomacy (University of Torino,
Italy) and contributes to the work of the international legal team, in
particular assisting with the Minority Ombudsman project.  She can be
reached at alber@ecmi.de



---------------------------
5. New acquisitions of the ECMI Library
---------------------------

European Commission for Democracy through Law (2002).
The protection of national minorities by their kin-state (Science and
democracy, 32). Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 420 pp.

This book includes "The Hungarian legislation on Hungarians living in
neighbouring countries", by Kinga G�l; and also includes "Preferential
treatment of kin-minorities and monitoring of the Implementation of the
Framework Convention for National Minorities, by Rainer Hofmann.

Walzer, Michael (3rd ed. 2000). Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument
with Historical Illustrations.
New York: Basic Books, 361 pp.

With a special new preface that considers the moral implications of
intervention in the countless interethnic conflicts that have plagued
the last decade, this classic work draws on historical illustrations
that range from the Athenian attack on Melos to the My Lai massacre, and
uses the testimony of participants to examine the central questions of
war and morality. the author's discussion of war as the severest moral
test that men and women ever face is a timeless piece of political and
moral theory.

We hope you have enjoyed this twenty-fifth issue of the ECMI Newsletter,
and we hope you will remember to tell interested colleagues about it.

If you have any comments or suggestions for improvement of this
newsletter, please contact William McKinney at: mckinney@ecmi.de.