ABSTRACT
The Introduction explains the focus, approach and structure of this collection, which offers insights into how “unsettled orders” in the transatlantic region affect minority rights. Internationally recognised minority rights have historically helped to stabilise the international order, but various orders are now in flux. Phenomena in the 21st century like terrorism in Western states, the global financial crisis, migration, pandemic and the rise of illiberalism and populism have raised new questions. An interdisciplinary scholarly engagement contextualised in a historic perspective, this collection considers the potentially destabilising questions that the global governance of minority rights faces in our era at the global, regional and local levels. Each author examines some “unstable order” affecting the emergence, interpretation and implementation of minority rights norms. The book is structured in four parts. Part I offers interdisciplinary perspectives on minority rights within the changing international order. Part II focuses on migration, new threats to minority identities and complexities of religious identities. Part III addresses issues related to Indigenous peoples and Roma. Part IV rounds out the collection with a discussion of American citizenship in the context of denials for select minority identities and a discussion of how the COVID pandemic has contributed to policies amplifying instabilities in minority relations in some European settings.
