News archive

According to 2001 census, over 200000 ethnic Bulgarians are living mostly in Southern Ukraine. A fifth of the population of Odessa oblast (province) is ethnic Bulgarian. Ukraine is currently working on a territorial-administrative reform and various ethnic groups claim different form of autonomy. Ethnic Bulgarians in Ukraine demand cultural autonomy and maintaining the city of Bolgrad located in Odessa oblast as the administrative center for the community. Read more...

Kurdish parties have declared the establishment of a federal system in areas they control in northern Syria. The region will reportedly be called "Rojava - northern Syria". Rojava is the term Kurds use to refer to Syrian Kurdistan. The Kurds already operate "autonomous administrations" in three enclaves bordering Turkey: Afrin and Kobane in Aleppo province and Jazira in Hassakeh. The new federal region will also include mainly Arab and Turkmen areas captured from so-called Islamic State. The declaration was dismissed by the Syrian government, which insisted that it would have no legal basis. The US and Turkey, which is wary of anything that might encourage separatism by its own Kurdish minority, have also warned against such a unilateral move. Read more ...

The Gällivare district court granted the ​Sami village (sameby) of Girjas exclusive rights to control fishing and hunting in the area, restoring powers that were stripped from the Sami people by Sweden’s Parliament in 1993. According to Swedish law, sameby is a legal entity of indigenous Sami people that is granted a special juridical status that allows members some rights over the grazing areas used for reindeer husbandry. Lawyers for the state claimed that the indigenous status of the Sami people was irrelevant to the case and that Sweden has no international obligations to recognize special rights of the Sami, whether they are indigenous or not. Read more...

As a consultative body of the Provincial Council, the Convention’s purpose is to reform the Autonomy Statute with the help of South Tyrol’s population by means of deliberative methods in a series of discussion rounds organized from 23 January 2016 onwards all over South Tyrol.  The results of the discussion rounds aim at the formation of a “Forum of 100” composed of residents in the province who are at least 16 years old. The “Forum of 100” will regularly meet and consult the main body called the “Convention of 33”, which will be appointed by the Provincial Council and will be composed of politicians, legal experts and stakeholders, as well as eight members of the “Forum of 100”.  At the end of a one-year process, the “Convention of 33” will present the consultation results to the Provincial Council. All work meetings of the “Forum of 100” and the “Convention of 33” are accessible to the public. Intermediate and final results are published in German, Italian and Ladin on the Convention’s website.

The Wampis nation has declared the formation of its autonomous territorial government with the election of the first representatives and the approval and publication of its Statute, the legal framework which they will use to govern the territory. In a historic moment for the indigenous Peoples of Latin America, they issued their first Resolution which declared the totality of their ancestral territory, an area that covers more than 1.3 million hectares, as an integrated territory. The announcement was made during the first ever Wampis Summit in front of almost 300 representatives from 85 communities. Read more...

The Constitutional Court of Kosovo has decided to suspend an EU-backed agreement on the rights of the Serbian minority. Serbia's foreign minister accused Pristina of 'mocking' the EU and other international partners. The judges' decision has put the agreement on Serbian minority rights on ice until the court determines whether it is in line with Kosovo's constitution. The decision temporarily "bans conducting further legal actions" based on the agreement which would allow association and a degree of autonomy for Serbian communities in Kosovo. Read more...