Hungary and a new paradigm for the protection of ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe

With the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe, tensions between ethnic minorities again threaten the stability of the entire continent To avoid the mistakes of the past, several nations have looked to collective rights measures to ensure that the human rights of members of ethnic minorities are protected. Collective rights measures should not replace the existing regime of individual rights guarantees; instead, collective rights can play an important role by supplementing the existing individual rights regime. While national collective rights measures have been largely effective, enacting collective rights measures at the international level promises to further improve the protection of minority rights in Central and Eastern Europe.