Presentation

 

The rights of minorities within a nation-state have experienced important developments in constitutional law and international law in Europe, mostly in the last decade of the 20th century. Such developments, by enhancing the legal consequences of social and cultural pluralism, affect the balance between the protection of minorities and the unitary national character of the state, whose current distinct features must be recognized as different from those contributing to the historical nation-building process. How is a nation-state to be defined and construed in the 21st century? How is the law made to conform to the prevailing social, cultural and religious pluralism? What is the lesson to be learnt from the language policy of the European Union? Is there a European model for the proper balance between the protection of minorities and the preservation of the nation-state? How is Israel reacting to its own Jewish and democratic heritage in order to accommodate the rights of minorities? Is there any scope of transplant of the European model in Israel? Language and educational rights of minorities, while being the object of a strong protection in Europe, are just as strongly protected in Israel as a permanent character of the Israeli plural society? Is the protection of minorities in Israel and in the Middle East a matter of actual concern for the European Union? The international seminar will discuss these topics and attempt at elaborating a shared frame of reference, while exploring as well the potential offered by the implementation of the right to adaptable education in Israeli-Arab Public Schools and in Israeli Jewish schools as a leading project of the Jewish-Arab Centre of Haifa University.