MOTHER TONGUE EDUCATION
Mercator International Symposium: Europe 2004: A new framework for all languages?
The right to mother tongue medium education-the hot potato in human rights instruments
Address by Dr. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas in Opening Plenary
"As long as we have the language, we have the culture. As long as we have the culture, we can hold on to the land." ------------------------(pg. 1)
In an article called "Justice for sale. International law favours market values", Mireille DelmasMarty (2003) discusses the danger in the conflict between legal concepts based on, on the one hand, "universal" market values , on the other hand, genuinely universal non -market values. The genuinely universal non -market values obviously include individual and collective human rights, as a part of the universal common heritage of humanity.
Even if philosophy of both human rights law and philosophically oriented parts of political science now start accepting that there shouldbe normative rights in relation to at least some parts of this heritage (in their terminology "common public assets"), the legal protection of market values is incommensurably stronger than the protection of non-market values. DelmasMarty exemplifies this with the fact that there is no universal international court that individuals could turn to when their (non -market value based) human rights have been violated. "Individual rights are entirely a matter for states, and reports are the only form of monitoring" (ibid.).And if this monitoring, which I have exemplified with the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention, does not support educational linguistic human rights strongly, there is a problem.
On the other hand, laws based on market values are being spread by more or less global organizations like the WTO (World Trade Organisation) and, it seems to me, even more dangerously, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) 25. These laws are being developed extremely rapidly, with harsh sanctions for violations.
The right to mother tongue medium education-the hot potato in human rights instruments
Address by Dr. Tove Skutnabb-Kangas in Opening Plenary
"As long as we have the language, we have the culture. As long as we have the culture, we can hold on to the land." ------------------------(pg. 1)
In an article called "Justice for sale. International law favours market values", Mireille DelmasMarty (2003) discusses the danger in the conflict between legal concepts based on, on the one hand, "universal" market values , on the other hand, genuinely universal non -market values. The genuinely universal non -market values obviously include individual and collective human rights, as a part of the universal common heritage of humanity.
Even if philosophy of both human rights law and philosophically oriented parts of political science now start accepting that there shouldbe normative rights in relation to at least some parts of this heritage (in their terminology "common public assets"), the legal protection of market values is incommensurably stronger than the protection of non-market values. DelmasMarty exemplifies this with the fact that there is no universal international court that individuals could turn to when their (non -market value based) human rights have been violated. "Individual rights are entirely a matter for states, and reports are the only form of monitoring" (ibid.).And if this monitoring, which I have exemplified with the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention, does not support educational linguistic human rights strongly, there is a problem.
On the other hand, laws based on market values are being spread by more or less global organizations like the WTO (World Trade Organisation) and, it seems to me, even more dangerously, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) 25. These laws are being developed extremely rapidly, with harsh sanctions for violations.