(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)
The League of Nations is not a sufficient instrument for the regulation of conflicts between the National Minorities and the States to which they belong, because the League of Nations as an international body by its intervention takes the consideration of the conflict outside the territory of the State and transfers it to the international sphere. This view was expressed by the Congress of National Minorities in its resolution on the regulation of conflicts between minorities and the States adopted at today’s session.
The codification of the rights of the minorities in separate treaties, the declaration that the violation of these rights is a matter of international concern and the taking over of the guarantee for the protection of these rights by the league of Nations is an event of historic significance for the future. It means that an international forum has been created in the shape of the League of Nations for the regulation of minority questions, states the resolution which was presented by Dr. Margulies, representative of the Jewish minority in Czecho-Slovakia.
This method of regulation, however, has shown itself to be insufficient, the resolution stated because the League of Nations is, in accordance with its character, not only the highest and the final instance for the regulation of conflicts arising out of the violation of minority rights, but is also the first and the sole instance, with the result that it is burdened with tasks which in accordance with its nature it cannot completely carry out. Questions in dispute come before the first instance only when the conflict is already in being and from the very beginning the regulation of matters arising out of internal conditions is taken in hand by an international body.
The Congress, therefore, emphasizes the need of finding ways and means of avoiding conflicts, and preventing them from becoming acute, by leading them in the direction of all disputes arising out of the relations between a majority and minority, being settled on the territory of the State in question under conditions providing for full equality.
The Congress sees in the League of Nations the most important forum for the settlement of conflicts between peoples and the pacification of the world. It regards the establishment of conditions of mutual confidence between the League of Nations and the peoples and especially the National Minorities as an urgent task in which it is the duty of all minorities to cooperate.
The Congress, the resolution stated, declares null and void every renunciation by national groups of their minority rights which are an integral basic right of every national group, irrespective of whether they are definitely confirmed in treaties or not, and declares the attempts of Governments to bring about such renunciations as being in violation of public order. The Congress recalls the decision of the League of Nations Assembly adopted on September 21, 1922 giving expression to the moral obligation on all States which are not legally bound by minority protection treaties to observe the fundamentals of justice and toleration.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
