Talk Title: 'International order and minority rights: cultural hierarchy and its contestation in search of equality'

Abstract: Multilateral minority rights norms have repeatedly evolved in response to unstable international orders, demonstrating that the management of cultural diversity is deeply constitutive of international order. What is the role of culture in structuring, stabilising and legitimising international orders? By looking into the historic evolution of international minority rights, we gain insights into how international norms regulating cultural diversity have constituted and sustained cultural hierarchies and how these hierarchies have been contested, successfully at times, by those whom were marginalised and excluded by these very norms.

The presentation is based on the article: Anna-Mária Bíró and Corinne Lennox, ‘International order, diversity regimes and minority rights: a longue durée perspective’, forthcoming in Bíró and Newman (eds), Minority Rights and Liberal Democratic Insecurities: The Challenge of Unstable Orders, Routledge, 2022.