Stephen Borsody: The Hungarians: A Divided Nation

The system of international protection of national minorities, launched by World War I and destroyed by World War II, was ill-fated in Central Europe from the very beginning. The Treaty of Trianon created massive Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. But, paradoxically, the peace treaty obliged Hungary alone, not its neighbors, to assume commitments for the protection of national minorities, although few remained in Hungary. Nor did the Covenant of the League of Nations, signed simultaneously with the peace treaties, contain any provisions for the safeguarding of minority rights. Furthermore, at that time it was considered incompatible with the status of great powers to be subjected to such restrictions of their sovereignty, even if defeated. Thus, in the otherwise harsh Treaty of Versailles, defeated Germany, in her capacity as a great power, escaped such international obligations, a circumstance which later served well Hitler's purpose in providing warrant for his claim that the persecution of Jews was strictly a domestic matter.

The international system of minority protection itself was of considerable interest to Jews, being a persecuted minority for centuries. In fact, the first international initiative for such a protection came from Jewish interest groups, mainly in the United States. However, the principal powers of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-21 may

themselves have realized the need for minority protection in view of some of the unfair ethnic situations created by the territorial settlements. Thus, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia (and also Poland and the Baltic states) were persuaded or forced, as a condition of their extensive territorial acquisitions in violation of the ethnic principle, to enter into special treaties for the protection of ethnic groups annexed against their will. These treaties were concluded not with the mother countries of the minorities, but with the Principal Allied and Associated Powers: Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. The United States, becoming increasingly critical of the whole process of peacemaking, refused to participate in any of these transactions.

The separate treaties, dubbed "minority treaties," between the Principal Allied and Associated Powers on the one hand, and Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia on the other, were signed on September 10, 1919, at Saint-Germaine-en-Laye, a Paris suburb. The purpose of the minority treaties was the preservation and protection of the ethnic, religious, and linguistic identity of those groups which had come under alien regimes against their will and as a result of the new frontiers. In other words, the ethnocultural status of these minorities was not to be endangered or adversely affected by the changes of territorial sovereignty imposed on them. Also, it was believed by the sponsors of the minority treaties that internationally guaranteed protection would prevent the minorities from opposing the new regimes and help to convert them into loyal citizens of their new fatherlands. On the other hand, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia (soon allied against Hungary in the Little Entente) believed that in return for their minority obligations, the great powers should guarantee their territorial integrity. The intention of tying the two issues to one another was evidently specious.1 Threats to territorial integrity stemming from the creation of large national minorities could have been in many cases eliminated by boundary changes. However, beneficiaries of the post-World War I distribution of territorial spoils adamantly refused such an option.

While the need for protection of national minorities appeared obvious, any contrary views were eagerly embraced by the Little Entente states. One such view was that of Afranio Mello-Franco, foreign minister and representative of Brazil in the Council of the League of

Nations. His thesis on "minority protection,", pronounced in February 1926, was the following:

It seems to me obvious that those who conceived this system of protection did not dream of creating within certain states a group of inhabitants who would regard themselves as permanently foreign in the general organization of the country. On the contrary, they enjoy a status of legal protection which might ensure respect for the inviolability of the person in all its aspects and which might gradually prepare the way for the conditions necessary for the establishment of a complete national unity. 2

The Mello-Franco thesis was enthusiastically acclaimed by the Little Entente countries forgetting that, if applied before World War I, the Slovak, Romanian, or Serb minorities could have hardly survived in historic Hungary.

Mello-Franco's assumptions may have been compatible with conditions of immigrants in Brazil, or elsewhere in the world, but were completely incompatible with the state of affairs in Central Europe. Old, established populations in the Old World could not be compared to immigrants who voluntarily chose to settle in new lands overseas or even closer to their former homes. The Mello-Franco doctrine clearly contradicted the purpose of the minority treaties and it was never officially endorsed by the European powers.

The minority treaties intended to protect "language, race, and religion" of all people without distinction as to their origins. They generally contained identical provisions, but also included some special clauses to meet individual national conditions. In particular, no restrictions were to be imposed on the use of any minority language in private or public, in commerce, in the realm of religion, in the press or other publications, as well as in public meetings. Use of the minority language was also to be assured in public offices and before the courts. The minority treaties also sought to ensure public education of the children of minorities in their mother tongues, at least on the levels of primary instruction. However, the official (majority) languages could be made a compulsory subject on all levels of instruction in minority schools. The minorities were also assured of the right to maintain their own private schools and other social institutions with the right to use their own languages. Furthermore, the treaty with Czechoslovakia, unlike those with Romania and Yugoslavia, guar-

anteed the right to education in minority tongue beyond primary instruction. It also provided an autonomous regime for Carpatho-Ruthenia. The treaty with Romania, on the other hand, included special commitments to grant limited autonomy in cultural and religious matters to the Hungarian-speaking Szekelys and the German-speaking Saxons of Transylvania.

The minority treaties were placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations and they were not to be modified without the consent of the League. Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia agreed that any member state represented in the Council of the League had the right to draw the attention of the Council to any breach or violation of the minority treaties. The Council was also authorized to take action or give direction in minority matters.

Hungary had never been elected to membership on the Council, thus it never had the opportunity to submit a minority complaint directly to the Council. A most circuitous procedure was thus the only resort available to the Hungarians for lodging a complaint. This channel was open both to a complaining state and to a member of the complaining minority. The complaint had to be filed with a special bureau of the League Secretariat, called the Minorities Question Section, where it was first examined.

When the petition was submitted by a government, it was passed directly to that government against which the complaint was directed. After an exchange of comments and counter-comments, the case was forwarded to a Committee of Three (consisting of three Council members). The Committee could freely act as it pleased; it could summarily dismiss the complaint, or suggest negotiations between the Minorities Question Section of the League Secretariat and the governments concerned. Members of the Minorities Question Section could also report the complaint to the Council. Only the final actions were conducted in public; all prior procedures were confidential. Only twice did Hungary's numerous complaints reach the Council of the League of Nations.3

When a petition was filed by a member or organization of a national or religious minority, the Minorities Question Section was authorized to examine it first to determine whether it fulfilled the requirements of "receivability." In practice, this meant that the Minorities Question Section could reject the petition outright. It could also discuss the complaint with the petitioners and reach a solution

in private. Very few of these complaints ever reached the Committee of Three. Furthermore, a minority organization or members of a minority were running considerable risks by bringing cases against their own governments before an international forum. And even if they dared to do so, they had little chance of passing the gauntlet of bureaucratic obstacles.

The attitudes of the Little Entente states toward their Hungarian minorities varied greatly, and thus their respect for the provisions of the minority treaties also varied. Czechoslovakia, burdened by its enormous German minority but living under a democratic regime, proved relatively more law-abiding than Romania or Yugoslavia. It was in Romania that Hungarian deputies most often intervened on behalf of their people, while in Yugoslavia, under royal dictatorship, the situation for such actions was rather delicate.

There were also charges other than the routine minority-language complaints lodged against the Little Entente governments. These were mostly complaints of a financial nature which could be brought before the Mixed Arbitral Tribunals established by the peace treaties. Best known among them were the claims of the Hungarian "optants," so called because these Hungarians opted to retain Hungarian citizenship under the provisions of the peace treaties, although their original places of residence were in the territories annexed by Hungary's neighbors. These plaintiffs owned real estate in the three Little Entente countries, often expropriated under the guise of "agrarian reforms" even if they were not large estates. "Agrarian claims" might have been a more appropriate name for these cases.4 It was Article 250 of the Peace Treaty of Trianon that said that properties of former enemy citizens in the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy were not to be seized and, if they had been seized, they should be returned to their owners.

In the early 1920s, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia introduced large-scale agrarian reforms which were implemented in a discriminatory manner against Hungarian owners. When Hungarian citizens started proceedings against the Little Entente governments, these governments insisted that the Mixed Arbitral Tribunals had no jurisdiction over such claims because the expropriations had not been implemented under the terms of Article 250, but under domestic agrarian reform legislations. When the Mixed Arbitral Tribunals re-

jected the plea of non-competence, the defendant governments withdrew their arbitrators and prevented the tribunals from functioning. The Hungarian government forthwith asked the Council of the League of Nations to appoint the missing members of the tribunals as provided by the peace treaty. Lengthy discussions followed. Eventually a compromise was agreed upon. By the Hague-Paris Agreement of 1930 (which also settled Hungary's reparation debts) an Agrarian Fund was set up, financed partly by indemnity payments by the defendant states, partly by the war reparation payments of Hungary, and partly by the contributions of the great powers. Thereafter, based on judgments of the Mixed Arbitral Tribunals, and in proportion to the availability of funds, the Agrarian Fund indemnified the owners of the confiscated lands.5

Much attention was also drawn to another case. The Peter Pazmany University of Budapest owned large landholdings in Slovakia, estates which had been donated by the Hungarian kings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. After Slovakia's annexation, the Czechoslovak government had seized these properties, whereupon the university initiated a lawsuit before the Tribunal. The confiscation was based on the thesis that the university was a state institution, therefore the Czechoslovak state duly inherited it. The Tribunal, however, held that the university's landholdings constituted private property, and ordered, in 1933, the Prague government to return it. The Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague rejected the Czechoslovak appeal and confirmed the decision of the Mixed Arbitral Tribunal. Subsequently, the claim was settled by a lump-sum payment by the Czechoslovak government.6

In the latter part of the 1930s, Hungary's and the world's attention was diverted from arguments over minority problems to Nazi Germany's actions. Minority treaties were no longer invoked when revision of frontiers became the topic of discussion by the Great Powers.

The inhumanities committed before and during World War II, especially by Nazi Germany and Japan, induced the Allied governments and those represented at the San Francisco Conference of 1944, which founded the United Nations Organization, to enact provisions for the respect and protection of "human rights and fundamental freedoms." The safeguard of such rights had already been pledged during the war by the Atlantic Charter (1941), the Declaration of the United Nations

(1942), and by the Teheran Declaration (1943). In 1947, the peace treaties with Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Finland, and Italy contained clauses for the protection of human rights and individual freedoms. But none of them provided for special guarantees to ethnic minorities, as was the case with the treaties concluded after World War I. At the same time, in 1947, interwar treaties for the protection of national minorities were declared terminated "through basic changes in conditions."7

The Charter of the United Nations Organization contained several specific references to human rights and fundamental freedoms. Article 1 listed one of the purposes of the United Nations as "promoting and encouraging" respect for human rights "without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion." By Article 62, the Economic and Social Council was empowered to make recommendations "for the purpose of promoting respect and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all." But the Charter mentioned nowhere specifically the safeguarding of the rights of minorities, whether ethnic, racial, or religious. And it seemed especially uncertain whether protection of ethnicity was included under the term "human rights."

With the introduction of the concept of "human rights" and "fundamental freedoms" in the Charter, as well as in other conventions, the protection of ethnic minorities had been, in fact, obscured and largely ignored. As a United Nations study on ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities, published as late as 1979, admitted: "For quite a long time (at least 20 years) after the end of the Second World War, it was thought - and stated in writing - that the question of international protection of minorities was no longer topical."8 There were several reasons for this manifest disregard:

(a) The extermination of six million Jews in Europe must have appeared to the public as an event which in its enormity overshadowed violations of minority rights.

(b) Accordingly, the protection of human rights - that is, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - must have appeared more important to the drafters of the charter than the safeguarding of ethnic cultures.

(c) Many people believed that the guarantees for national minorities had been used by Hitler as a pretext to threaten Germany's neighbors.

(d) It might have been believed that with the wholesale and indiscriminate expulsion of German minorities from Poland and Czechoslovakia, as well as the attempt by Czechoslovakia "to exchange" its Hungarian minority, national minority protection had become both anomalous and superfluous.

(e) Since the United States and Latin American states had been instrumental in drafting the new international legal statutes, the impact of the alleged principle of "American Public Law" (as already foreshadowed by the Mello-Franco thesis), that is, that immigrants should have no claim for status and protection as an ethnic minority, also contributed to the neglect and disregard of national minority rights.9

The charter drafters were eager to emphasize the need for the protection of human rights. But Article 2 (par. 7) prohibited the United Nations from intervening "in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction" of any state. The inherent contradiction between these two postulates has plagued the proceedings of the world organization ever since. Theoretically, it had been agreed that, with the adoption of the charter and subsequent instruments providing protection of human rights, the violation of such rights had ceased to be a matter "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction" of states and had become a question of international concern. But, in practice, many violators of such rights, headed by the Soviet Union, refused even to discuss such complaints in the United Nations and elsewhere on the grounds that such action would constitute illegal interference in their internal affairs.

The United Nations Economic and Social Council, at its first session (January-February 1946), set up the Commission of Human Rights with the task of preparing the following international enactments:

(a) The Universal Bill of Rights;

(b) International declarations or conventions on civil liberties, the status of women, freedom of information and similar matters;

(c) Arrangements for the protection of minorities (this may be a clear indication that minorities were not meant to be covered under the "human rights" protection);

(d) Arrangements for the prevention of discrimination on grounds of race, sex, language, or religion.

The commission first prepared the Universal Declaration of Hu-

man Rights; it was adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948. The declaration listed such rights as the right to life, to security, and to equality, the right to marry and to own property, freedom of thought and religion, the right to assembly, the right to work as well as to education and participation in the cultural life of the community. However, the declaration did not specifically state that members of a national minority have the right to education in their own language, to use their language before authorities and the courts, to speak in assemblies in their own language, or to enjoy their own special ethnic cultural life.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the Human Rights Commission in 1962, provided in its Article 1 that: "All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of this right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development."

However, in the interpretation of the United Nations organs, especially the General Assembly, this right to self-determination only applied to colonial or ex-colonial peoples.

Article 27 of the covenant seemed to recall the existence of national minorities by providing that: "In those states in which ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be deprived of the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language."

Besides such a general pronouncement, there was no provision in the covenant for schooling in a minority language, for use of a minority language before public offices and in courts of law or assemblies, nor for the right to use such language in the press or other publications. Because Article 27 was to have universal application, it is - unlike the specific post-World War I minority treaties - less elaborate and extremely cautious. In fact, its meaning is unclear and obscure.10 Incidentally, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also failed to mention the protection of the right to own property. Facing the opposition of the Communist governments, the drafting commission dropped any reference to property.

The United Nations Economic and Social Council also set up the Subcommittee on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. This Subcommittee, unlike the Human Rights Commission (which consisted of government representatives), was composed of

twelve persons in individual capacities. Its program was to study discrimination in certain fields, such as education, employment, political rights, and religious practices. The main activity of the subcommittee was devoted to these topics rather than to the question of national or other minorities. Nevertheless, at its first session in 1947, the subcommittee passed a decision on the protection of minorities, reaching an agreement on the following convoluted phrasing:

The protection of non-dominant groups which, while wishing in general for equality of treatment with the majonty, wish for a measure of differ entiated treatment in order to preserve basic characteristics which they possess and which distinguish them from the majority of the population. The protection applies equally to individuals belonging to such groups and wishing the same protection.11

This convoluted but laudable pronouncement was, however, never followed up by legislative or other actions. In fact, for years the subcommittee debated the question of defining a "minority," but there was no agreement reached, not even on this preliminary point.12

The rules of implementation introduced for the protection of minorities by the treaties of the post-World War II era are far less complete and practical than those of the interwar treaties which themselves were less than satisfactory.

The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides for the establishment of a Human Rights Committee (to be distinguished from the Human Rights Commission), consisting of eighteen members, elected for a term of four years by the states which were parties to the covenant. This body is to be the guardian of implementation. The actual measures of implementation were divided into three gradual stages. First stage: The signatories submit reports on compliance with the provisions of the treaty and these reports are examined by the committee. Second stage: Complaints by governments for violations of the provisions of the covenant may be submitted to the committee; but only if the states which are parties to the treaty have made a special declaration recognizing the competence of the committee to examine such complaints is the body authorized to propose a solution to the dispute. Third stage: If the solution proposed is not acceptable to either party, the committee, again only with the consent of the interested states, may appoint an ad hoc Conciliation Commission of five persons which undertakes the task of reaching a settlement. But,

in any case, the parties to the dispute are free to accept or reject the report of either the Human Rights Committee or that of the Conciliation Commission.

The covenant primarily deals only with complaints submitted by governments. Individual petitions are only admissible if the parties have signed and ratified the Optional Protocol. In such a case, the Committee would examine the complaint in a closed meeting and eventually "forward its views to the State Party concerned and to the individual." There is no provision under any of these cases for any enforcement measures. It seems clear that the procedure of implementation is essentially based on the willingness of the parties to cooperate. There is no possibility of achieving even a quasi-judicial binding decision.13

The Covenant of Civil and Political Rights entered into force on March 23, 1976. Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, and also the Soviet Union, are among its signatories. But none of these states had made any special declaration recognizing the competence of the committee, nor did they sign the Optional Protocol.

By way of comparison, it should be pointed out that under the United Nations Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial Countries, and under the provisions of the Special Committee on Apartheid Policy, individual complaints and petitions are freely admitted without any conditions whatsoever. Such a preferential treatment reflects the desire of the Afro-Asian majority in the United Nations to press for a change of policy in some countries, especially in South Africa.14 On the other hand, national sovereignty is vigorously defended by Soviet bloc states of Central and Eastern Europe against interference in domestic affairs. Within the bloc, however, Moscow regards such an interference as justifiable according to the so-called Brezhnev doctrine.

The Helsinki Accord of August 1, 1975, attempted to pierce the Iron Curtain and establish a quasi-right to influence developments in the sphere of human rights. In that sense, the Final Act of the Helsinki Accord is a unique document. While it is not a formal treaty, it did establish the right to question any infringement of human rights (including minority rights) without committing an "interference" into the domestic jurisdiction of the states in question.l5 The so-called Basket III of the Helsinki Accord deals with all the

aspects of human rights, including those relating to national minorities. Principle VII of the Final Act dealt with this matter by declaring:

The participating States on whose territory national minorities exist will respect the right of persons belonging to such minorities to equality before the law, will afford them the full opportunity for the actual enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms and will, in this manner, protect their legitimate interests in this sphere.

Similar to various other enactments of post-World War II vintage, the Helsinki Accord seeks to safeguard respect for human rights for minorities, as well as for the majority population. But, nowhere is it clearly stated that national minorities should be allowed to enjoy their ethnic culture in order to prevent their involuntary merger into the ethnic majority of the states in which they happen to exist.

Principle VIII of the Helsinki Final Act handles the question of self-determination of people. Here we find the following rather ambiguous provisions:

The participating States will respect the equal rights of peoples and their right to self-determination, acting at all times in conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and with the relevant norms of international law, including those relating to territorial integrity of States.

By virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, all peoples have the nght, in full freedom, to determine, when and as they wish, their internal and external political status, without external interference, and to pursue as they wish their political, economic, social and cultural development.

In the above context, "internal" self-determination implies the right of a people to become independent, whereas "external" self-determination could mean the right to secede from the state to which they belong. During the Helsinki negotiations it was, however, emphasized by the Soviet Union and other socialist countries that "national minorities" differ from "peoples" in so far that only the latter have the right of "external" self-determination, that is, the right te secede, whereas such a right was not to be granted to national minorities.l6 If this interpretation is correct, one may ask: What is precisely the sense of Principle VIII within the framework of the Helsinki Final Act?

The Helsinki Final Act was signed by all thirty-three European

states (except Albania), as well as the United States of America and Canada. It does not appear that it has, in any significant manner, changed the attitudes of Hungary's neighbors toward their national minorities.

The minority treaties concluded after World War I contained fairly satisfactory legal provisions for the protection of national minorities, although the rules of implementation and the practice by which these rules were applied were manifestly inadequate.

In the era following World War II, enactments for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, because of their generalizing character, failed to provide legal safeguards for the national minorities, especially with respect to their language and other aspects of their cultural heritage. Human rights protection is supposed to prevent discrimination against ethnic groups. In reality, it remains blind to the special protection which national minorities need in order to avoid submergence in the majority and loss of their national-ethnic identity, including their language. It must be further emphasized that, despite the impressive rhetoric of the human rights treaties and declarations, even the general protection of human rights and individual freedoms has remained, by and large, deficient or nonexistent.

The global ideological cleavage prevents Hungary from raising the question of Hungarian national minorities before the United Nations and its associated agencies. Hungary, being a member of the Soviet-led bloc of Communist states, could not think of bringing a complaint against another member of the bloc before an international agency. Such legal proceedings are absolutely out of the question. Only inter-Communist party channels could be used for such purposes and they could be used only with the approval and support of Moscow.17

In the interwar period, Hungary never had influential allies who would or could help her in the complicated maze of procedures before the League of Nations. Today, to protect Hungarian national minorities against violations of their human rights, complaints could only be brought directly to the United Nations Security Council by a member state on the grounds that such violations endanger peace. So far, no Western government has shown any inclination to undertake such actions.

Accordingly, the Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union are at the mercy of those

totalitarian regimes irrespective of human rights provisions in the charter and elsewhere and of the ambiguous and deficient enactments in favor of national minorities in some treaties, including the Helsinki Final Act. And such totalitarian regimes are able to exercise very efficient discriminatory measures against their ethnic minorities.

The territorial reshaping of Central Europe after World War I resulted in the separation of millions of Hungarians from their fatherland. Boundary changes were carried out under the implied condition that the cultural survival of national minorities would be assured. Now such survival is even less assured.

Notes

1. See C. A. Macartney's article in Evan Luard, ed., The International Protection of Human Rights (London, 196?), 36.

2. C. A. Macartney, Nanonal States and National Minorities (London, 1934), 277 (italics added).

3. The Hungarian Settlers (Farmers) case was discussed at the Council of the League of Nations in its sessions in June, September, and December 1925. Agreement was reached when the Romanian government promised to pay compensation. The second case concerned a petition by szekely residents of Transylvania which was also against Romania; the council handled this case at its sessions of May and September 1931, as well as January and May 1932, and finally in September 1932 when a report was adopted. See Macartney, National States and National Minorities, 335, 346, 352, 356.

4. See Francis Deak, The Hungarian-Rumanian Land Dispute: A Study of Hungarian Property Rights in Transylvania under the Treaty of Trianon (New York, 1928).

5. For The Hague-Paris Agreement, see Agreements Relating to the Obligations Resulting from the Treaty of Trianon, signed at Paris, April 28, 1930, League of Nations Treaty Series 121, no. 2785: 69-90.

6. For the judgment of the World Court, see Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague, Appeal from the Judgment of the Czechoslovak-Hungarian Mixed Arbitral Tribunal (Peter Pazmany University v. Czechoslovakia), Judgment of December 15, 1933, series AIB, no. 61. See also, Manley O. Hudson, ed., World Court Reports, 1932-35 (Washington, D.C., 1938), 3:311-67. The author served as one of the representatives of the university and negotiated the final settlement of the case.

7. Gerhard von Glahn, Law among Nations (New York, 1976), 448-49.

The decision was published in United Nations Document, E/CN, 4/367, pp. 36-38.

8. Study on the Rights of Persons Belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. By Francesco Capotorti, Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. United Nations Document, E/CN, 4/Sub.2/384/Rev.1, p. iii.

9. At the Lima Conference of American States in 1938 a special declaration announced that immigrant aliens should not be allowed to claim in their new homes the status of national minorities. This principle was reaffirmed in 1942 as a "Principle of American Public Law" at Rio de Janeiro and again in Mexico City in 1945. Charles G. Fenwick, International Law, 4th ed. (New York, 1965), 317-18.

10. See Egon Schwelb's article in Asbjorn Eide and August Schon, eds., International Protection of Human Rights (New York, 1968), 121-22.

11. Economic and Social Council, Official Records, 6th Session, Supplement no. 11, E/CN, 4/52, December 6, 1947.

12. See Sir Samuel Hoare's article in Luard, ed., The International Protection of Human Rights, pp. 75-76.

13. See Francesco Capotorti's article in Eide and Schon, eds., International Protection of Human Rights, 131-48.

14. Ibid., 147.

15. See Thomas Buergenthal, ed., Human Rights, International Law and the Helsinki Accord (Montclair, N.J., 1977).

16. Ibid., 101.

17. See Ferenc A. Vali, "Transylvania and the Hungarian Minority," Journal of International Affairs 20, no. 1 (1966): 32-44.

Stephen Borsody: The Hungarians: A Divided Nation