Cultural Autonomy and Minority Self-Governance

SASA Board for the Study of National Minorities and Human Rights in cooperation with the Institute of Social Sciences from Belgrade organize a round table entitled ‘Cultural Autonomy and Minority Self-Governance’ on Wednesday and Thursday, 30-31 October. On the first day, the round table will be held at the SASA Hall 3, at 9.30 a.m., while on the second day, the work will be carried out at the Institute of Social Sciences.

This year, the Board has published conference proceedings ‘National Minority Rights in the Constitutional System of the Republic of Serbia’, while the Institute published a monograph  ‘Multiculturalism in Public Policies’ in 2018, which includes works on the status of national minorities in Serbia and in regional states. These scientific publications pointed out that there are different experiences and practices in the region concerning the position of minority self-governance, their elections, jurisdictions, positions and decision-making process. Despite the concept of cultural autonomy based on minority self-governance being in accordance with the European standards of protection of national minorities, the experiences in the region illustrate particularities deserving additional analysis and consideration.

The round table participants will try to respond to issues on the position of cultural autonomy and minority self-governance in the legal and political systems of regional states. The discussion is organized in four thematic groups: Cultural autonomy in ethnically diverse societies, Comparative work experiences of minority self-governance, National councils of national minorities of Serbia and Collection of ethnically sensitive data. The participants are eminent experts from Serbia and the region.