minority protection system between the two world wars
Before the First World War the protection of minorities was mainly provided by international treaties, especially peace treaties, guaranteeing religious freedom. The best known in this context is the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Between the two world wars the victorious states joined the League of Nations to build the system of minority protection that actually was operating until 1934. The legal basis for this specific mechanism of minority protection was given by the peace treaties concluded with the losers of the First World War (including Hungary) and the treaties on minority protection concluded with the members of the Little Entente (including Czechoslovakia and Romania), bilateral treaties on minorities (such as the Polish–German agreement on the rights of minorities in Gdańsk and Upper Silesia), and unilateral declarations on the protection of minorities (including those made by the Baltic States and Albania). Among other things the protection extended to the right to citizenship, political freedoms, freedom of religion, the establishment and maintenance of religious, educational and cultural institutions, the use of languages in private and in court, the right to education in the mother tongue in the state education system, and a fair share of public property. In order to guarantee these rights, the states concerned were obliged to adopt rules of constitutional force. Persons belonging to minorities had the right to lodge a complaint with the Council of the League of Nations, where the accepted complaint was examined by a committee of representatives of three states, asking for an explanation from the government against which the complaint was lodged. In the absence of an acceptable explanation the matter was placed on the Council’s agenda which could provide guidance on how to resolve the dispute.
The international system of minority protection between the two world wars had several shortcomings. It failed to include all the member states of the League of Nations, it was regional and political rather than legal in nature, and it was discredited within two decades by the abusive behaviour of the opposing European great powers. As a result of all this, when the United Nations was set up as the successor to the League of Nations, the protection of minorities under international law was taken off the agenda to be replaced by the concept of human rights.