international civil-law discrimination education legal-education
Discrimination arguments against the Ministry of Education that imposes an ethnicity to pupil
<p>Imagine the fictional Republic of Tratatoria is ethnically composed from Barmaliens, Turariens and Gluzariens.</p>
<p>The Minister of Education of the Republic of Tratatoria considers himself as Gluzarien.</p>
<p>He decides to rename the history object in the schoolbooks from &quot;History of Tratatoria&quot; to &quot;History of Gluzariens&quot;.</p>
<p>The Ministry translates the books in all ethnic languages.</p>
<p>What legal/international <strong>law arguments/precedents</strong> could be used to demonstrate that the Ministry is <strong>discriminating</strong> its own citizens?</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Real Case</strong> (Moldova)<br />
Please see <a href="https://github.com/sdudnic/moldova/wiki/egalitate-en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a></p>

<p>If Tratatoria has anti-discrimination laws, or provisions in its constitution forbidding discrimination, the Minister's actions might be illegal under them. But if it does not, or if it does not enforce whatever laws it may have, there is no international authority that can enforce any rule against discrimination.</p>
<p>People and groups in other countries could denounce such actions as biased and discriminatory, if they chose. There is no legal standard for such announcements. This might bring pressure on Tratatoria. But that would be a diplomatic and political matter, not a legal one. There really is no effective international law on discrimination unless it amounts to genocide, and even then it is essentially a matter of diplomatic pressure or potentially war to enforce regime change, not a true legal process.</p>

<p>There is no blanket international law against all forms of discrimination, so there is no way to make an official determination. It might be possible to do so in a specific case for a particular kind of discrimination, so you have to find what treaties Tratatoria has entered into. The <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3940.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination</a> is a good place to look. It defines racial discrimination as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race,
colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or
effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or
exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental
freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other
field of public life</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Tratatoria may have acceded to this treaty without reservations, then it might be enforceable against the government. To find out, first you would have to determine a specific violation. Most likely, this act is not already prohibited by the laws of Tratatoria, and the dispute would be over their failure to create such a law. In that case you would have to officially pursue a resolution with the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Art. 11). That however requires that Tratatoria has accepted Art. 14, whereby individuals have standing. There are so many possible escape clauses that Tratatoria is probably not subject to this treaty on this point, but let's continue.</p>
<p>As the complaining party, you would want to look for precedents, many of which are summarized <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/CERDSelectedDecisionsVolume1.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>. This is a long document which you would have to study carefully, and a violation is found in only about a quarter of cases. Some examples of findings of violation are Koptova v. Slovakia where certain villages prohibited residence of Roma people; L.K. v. Netherlands where the government failed to prosecute violation of already-outlawed acts. IMO there is no precedent under this treaty that suggests that the act is illegal, so then you would have to search for a different treaty, if any (e.g. EU law, if Tratatoria is a member).</p>

<p>Considering that there are countries whose <strong>laws</strong> and <strong>constitution</strong> treat people of different races differently (see for example Malaysia and Israel) there is no international laws that stops any country from discriminating it's own citizens. The best you can hope for is a UN resolution condemning a country.</p>
<p>Any such laws would also be problematic for any country that is attempting to implement anti-discrimination efforts (see for example affirmative action in USA).</p>
