Using a legal and multidisciplinary approach towards empirical and prescriptive analysis of contemporary minority rights standards, this book defends and elaborates a robust minority rights framework for articulating a constitutional design responsive to the claims of ethno-cultural groups in Africa.

Despite decades of nation-building exercise, ethnic-based claims for substantive equality, justice and equitable political inclusion and socio-economic order continue to result in communal rivalries. These are claims that define and represent the issue of minorities in Africa, of which these conflicts are manifestations. Although ethnic conflicts in Africa have been a subject of a large number of studies, the potential and role of norms on minority rights to address claims that ethno-cultural groups raise has not received the attention it deserves. Based on materials from normative political theory and international human rights law and using an empirical and prescriptive analysis, this book defends a robust system of minority rights built around culture, equality and self-determination. This is employed to elaborate an adequate constitutional design providing policy frameworks (multilingual language policy, recognition and affirmation of cultural diversity,), structures (that ensure just representation and participation of members of all groups) and norms (that guarantee substantive equality and the rights to language, religion and culture). The study then proffers two cases studies (South Africa and Ethiopia) to ascertain how such constitutional design might be translated into actual policy frameworks, institutions and norms.

A Theory of African Constitutionalism asks and seeks to answer why we need a new theoretical framework for African constitutionalism and how this could offer us better theoretical and practical tools with which to understand, improve, and assess African constitutionalism on its own terms. By locating constitutional studies in Africa within the experiences, interactions, and contestations of power and governance beginning in precolonial times, the book presents the development and transformation of African constitutional systems across time and place, along with the attendant constitutional designs and practices ranging from the nature and operation of the African state to its vertical and horizontal government structures, to its constitutional rights regime. This title offers both a theoretically and comparatively rich, historically and contextually informed, and temporally and spatially extensive account of the nature, travails, and incremental successes of African constitutionalism with detailed case studies from Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa. A Theory of African Constitutionalism provides scholars, policymakers, governments, and constitution builders in Africa and beyond with new insights for reimagining the purpose, substance, and scope of constitutions and constitutionalism.

Minority Accommodation through Territorial and Non-Territorial Autonomy explores the relationship between minority, territory, and autonomy, and how it informs our understanding of non-territorial autonomy (NTA) as a strategy for accommodating ethno-cultural diversity in modern societies. While territorial autonomy (TA) is defined by a claim to a certain territory, NTA does not assume that it is derived from any particular right to territory, allocated to groups that are dispersed among the majority while belonging to a certain self-identified notion of group identity. In seeking to understand the value of NTA as a public policy tool for social cohesion, this volume critically dissects the autonomy arrangements of both NTA and TA, and through a conceptual analysis and case-study examination of the two models, rethinks the viability of autonomy arrangements as institutions of diversity management. This is the second volume in a five-part series exploring the protection and representation of minorities through non-territorial means, examining this paradox within law and international relations with specific attention to non-territorial autonomy (NTA).

Created in order to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992-2012), this publication aims to offer readers a comprehensive review, written by a variety of scholars in the field, of the value and impact of the standards formulated in the Declaration. In so doing, it hopes to stimulate attention for and debate around the Declaration and its principles. The regional perspectives and case studies included further enable the identification of positive initiatives and good practices as well as persistent gaps in the implementation of the standards enshrined in the Declaration.

This volume presents the most comprehensive collection of research on Hmong culture and life in Asia yet to be published. It compliments the abundant material on the Hmong diaspora by focusing instead on the Hmong in their Asian homeland. The contributors are scholars from a number of different backgrounds with a deep knowledge of Hmong society and culture, including several Hmong. The first group of essays addresses the fabric of Hmong culture by considering issues of history, language, and identity among the Hmong/Miao from Laos to China. The second part introduces the challenges faced by the Hmong in contemporary Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. Nicholas Tapp is senior fellow in anthropology at the Australian National University. Jean Michaud is associate researcher in Asian studies at University de Montreal. Christian Culas is a member of the National Center for Scientific Research in Marseille. Gary Yia Lee is senior ethnic liaison officer for New South Wales.