These were among the issues addressed at the conference Human Rights and Inclusive Citizenship: Conditions for co-existence in Conflict-ridden Societies at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and The Fritt Ord Foundation in Oslo, June 18 and 19, 2018.
States and civil society organizations often refer to minority status as an achievement and to minority rights as something that should be enhanced. International human rights law underlines in particular the duty of states not to deny religious, ethnic and linguistic minorities their human rights. There is a particular international framework for the rights of indigenous peoples. However, there are also persons belonging to ethnic and religious groups who are numeric minorities in a country that express ambiguity towards, or even resistance, towards using this term, although it may provide them with protection. They feel that the term may suggest that they are not fully recognized as citizens or that they are newcomers to a country when in fact they have lived there for centuries or millennia. Some rather refer to themselves "indigenous" peoples. Some prefer the term "different components of society" as a term referring rather to the plurality that every society consists of. Exploring dilemmas that may follow when citizens have rights on the basis of their religious or ethnic identity was one of the aims of the conference.
The conference was initiated and organized as part of the work in the "Minority Network", which is coordinated from the Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies. This initiative has gathered a number of Norwegian scholars and NGO experts over recent years to reflect on exactly the issues addressed at the conference. Over the last year it has also been extended to facilitate academic dialogues in and about other regions of the world as well, such as South-East Asia (in particular Myanmar) and the Balkans, and also the Middle East region (in particular Iraq). Many of the participants of the panels and at this conference have taken part in in these dialogues, organised in workshops and seminars, both in these regions - and in Norway.