entitlements, as well as, within a liberal framework, access to culturally desirable resources or goods such as the right to speak one’s own language in the public arena, or rights relating to religious freedom. This has therefore raised the question whether minority rights are dependent on person’s citizenship in the country of residence and what cultural rights, if any are to be guaranteed to third-country nationals and immigrant communities?13 Are immigrants expected to gradually absorb the values and norms which predominate in their host society, especially on an inter‐generational basis; or are social values and norms enduring and deep‐rooted within each nation, shaped by collective histories, common languages, and religious traditions, so that migrant populations are unlikely to abandon their cultural roots when they settle in another country 14? Hence, the nature of cultural (and linguistic) rights of minorities in the XXI century is changing and need to be reconsidered as the distinction between national minorities and immigrants is becoming more blurred. This is why Frederik Stjernfelt 15 has proposed the adoption of "soft" multiculturalism in liberal democracies as a possible solution. He argues that there should be maximum freedom for cultural variation possible, allowing citizens to develop their cultures however they desire - as long as they respect basic principles of democracy. The only limitation being no compromise between liberalism and culturalism, basic democratic and liberal principals overrule cultural preferences and new-comers have to adopt their way of life accordingly. The categorising minorities into national minorities and immigrants has an important normative value and holds significant consequences on the political level because they are attributed different moral value. National minorities are accorded with more or less the full complement of rights vis-à-vis immigrants, who are rendered a limited set of rights. The system of minority rights is based on the notion of compensation for the (historical) disadvantage. National minorities that have had to struggle to maintain their culture and way of life in the face of attempts of (sometimes forcible) assimilation, have been deprived of public status and of the politically allocated resources necessary for their culture to be preserved. Immigrants, however, are regarded as having relinquished their right to protect their societal culture by leaving it behind. They can be granted cultural rights that intend to assist them in expressing their cultural particularity and pride, but without it hindering the success of the economic and political institutions of the dominant society. The distinction between national minorities and immigrants is temporal: old immigrants become national minorities and new migrant communities arrive. This in turn raises the question degree of indigenousness needed for an immigrant community to become national minority. In Hungary, for example, for a community to gain national minority status, it has to have a history of at least one century of living in Hungary 16. One could of course argue whether a hundred years is too long or too short, but is a fixed numerical criterion. Another way to distinguish between national minorities and immigrants is to name them in the relevant Government regulation as Estonia 17 and Sweden18 have done. Here gaining the status is more dependent on the lobby activities of particular groups to push through legislative amendments to be included in the list.
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Article 27 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) does not exclude non-citizens from its realm and Article 2 promotes respect for the ICCPR rights for all persons within a state’s territory or jurisdiction. This implies that having satisfied all other requirements of minority, a group will not be excluded on the basis of their nationality and that aliens can constitute a minority group 14 Norris and Inglehart (2009) Cosmopolitan Communications: Cultural Diversity in a Globalized World. New York: Cambridge University Press 15 For more details see his article „Multiculturalism - Introduction to a Problem“ in this volume 16 Article 1, Act LXXVII of 1993 on the Rights of National and Ethnic Minorities 17 Law on Cultural Autonomy for National Minorities, 1993 18 Government Bill National Minorities in Sweden (1998/99:143)
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