Article 1

1. States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories, and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity.

2. States shall adopt appropriate legislative and other measures to achieve those ends.

Article 2

1. Persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minori­ties (hereinafter referred to as persons belonging to minorities) have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and without interfer­ence or any form of discrimination.

2. Persons belonging to minorities have the right to participate effectively in cultural, religious, social, economic and public life.

3. Persons belonging to minorities have the right to participate effectively in decisions on the national and, where appropriate, regional level concerning the minority to which they belong or the regions in which they live, in a manner not incompatible with national legislation.

4. Persons belonging to minorities have the right to establish and maintain their own associations.

5. Persons belonging to minorities have the right to establish and maintain, without any discrimination, free and peaceful contacts with other members of their group, with persons belonging to other minorities, as well as contacts across frontiers with citizens of other States to whom they are related by national or ethnic, religious or linguistic ties.

Article 3

1. Persons belonging to minorities may exercise their rights including those as set forth in this Declaration individually as well as in community with other members of their group, without any discrimination.

2. No disadvantage shall result for any person belonging to a minority as the consequence of the exercise or non exercise of the rights as set forth in this Declaration.

Article 4

1. States shall take measures where required to ensure that persons belonging to minorities may exercise fully and effectively all their human rights and fundamental freedoms without any discrimination and in full equality before the law.

2. States shall take measures to create favourable conditions to enable persons belonging to minorities to express their characteristics and to develop their culture, language, religion, traditions and customs, except where specific practices are in violation of national law and contrary to international stan­dards.

3. States should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible, persons belonging to minorities have adequate opportunities to learn their mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother tongue.

4. States should, where appropriate, take measures in the field of education, in order to encourage the knowledge of the history, traditions, language and culture of the minorities existing within their territory. Persons belonging to minorities should have adequate opportunities to gain knowledge of the society as a whole.

5. States should consider appropriate measures so that persons belonging to minorities may participate fully in the economic progress and develop­ment in their country.

Article 5

1. National policies and programmes shall be planned and implemented with due regard for the legitimate interests of persons belonging to minorities.

2. Programmes of co-operation and assistance among States should be planned and implemented with due regard for the legitimate interests of persons belonging to minorities.

Article 6

States should co-operate on questions relating to persons belonging to minori­ties, including exchange of information and experiences, in order to promote mutual understanding and confidence.

Article 7

States should co-operate in order to promote respect for the rights as set forth in this Declaration.

Article 8

1. Nothing in this Declaration shall prevent the fulfillment of international obligations of States in relation to persons belonging to minorities. In partic­ular, States shall fulfil in good faith the obligations and commitments they have assumed under international treaties and agreements to which they are parties.

2. The exercise of the rights as set forth in this Declaration shall not prejudice the enjoyment by all persons of universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms.

3. Measures taken by States in order to ensure the effective enjoyment of the rights as set forth in this Declaration shall not prima facie be considered contrary to the principle of equality contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

4. Nothing in this Declaration may be construed as permitting any activity contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations, including sovereign equality, territorial integrity and political independence of States.

Article 9

The organs and specialized agencies of the United Nations system shall con­tribute to the full realization of the rights and principles as set forth in this Declaration, within their respective fields of competence.

ПРИЛОЖЕНИЕ 3

SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS

HISTORY OF AMERICAN LAW (FROM THE BEGINNING TILL THE NINETEENTH CENTURY)

TASK 1. Study the text below, making sure you fully comprehend it. Where appropriate, consult English-Russian dictionaries and/or other reference & source books on law.

HISTORY OF AMERICAN CRIMINAL LAW (FROM THE BEGINNING TILL THE NINETEENTH CENTURY)

The earliest criminal codes mirrored the nasty life of pioneer settlements. Criminal justice in the colonies was on the whole less formal and more direct than English law; though here too, as time went on, there was a certain amount of conformity to the English practice. There was a simple penal philosophy: no one should be punished for crimes not clearly and openly labeled. In a just society, the rules of the criminal law had to be written down and known to one and all.

Punishment was open and public: whipping in the town square, the pillory and the stocks. Public opinion and the shame were important instruments of punishment. For community punishment to work, it had to be visible and public; and punishment often left physical marks on the condemned. So, burglars, for the first offense, were to be branded on the forehead with the letter B, for the second offense, whipped in public and only for the third offense were to be put to death, as being incorrigible.

Neither in theory nor in practice was the colonial law very bloodthirsty. There were fewer capital crimes on the books than in England. In England death was a possible punishment for many thieves; in Massachusetts, only for repeaters. The Quaker laws of New Jersey substituted restitution of property or hard labor for hanging. The death penalty was not carried out very frequently in the colonies.

A crime is, in theory, a public wrong: a wrong against some victim, to be sure, but also something that hurts society – which is why society takes over the job of punishing it. This was the case, at any rate in the colonies. In England, there was no such thing as a district attorney – no public prosecutor. People were supposed to do their own prosecuting – and pay for it themselves. Very early this system was rejected in the colonies; crime was too serious and important business to leave to individuals.

The late eighteenth century was a period in which the intellectuals began to rethink the premises on which criminal law rested. Great reformers – like Cesare Beccaria – suggested that at least some of the premises were wrong and argued for a more enlightened criminal law. Reform ideas left an imprint on the early state constitutions. Section 38 of the liberal Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 imposed on the future legislature a duty to reform the penal laws. Punishment must be made in some cases less sanguinary and in general more proportionate to the crimes.

Of course, real penal reform was never easy to achieve. The legislature of Pennsylvania did not match action to words for ten full years. In 1786, the death penalty was abolished for robbery, burglary and sodomy. In 1794 Pennsylvania enacted an important, innovative law about murder. The statute stated that the several offenses, which are included under the general denomination of murder, differ greatly from each other in the degree of their atrociousness. The statute then proceeded to distinguish between 2 different degrees of murder. Murder in the first degree was murder of poison or by any other kind of willful, deliberate or premeditated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, rape, robbery or burglary. All other murder was murder in the second degree. Only murder in the first degree was punishable by death.

A system of criminal justice is more than rules on paper. As a working system, it had to distribute power among judges, jurors, legislators. In American legal theory, the jury had enormous power, and was subject to very few controls. There was a maxim of law that the jury was judge both of law and of fact in criminal cases. It is not entirely clear what this meant – except as an expression of almost unlimited power. By the end of the period, many states, by statute or decision, had repudiated the doctrine.

The criminal justice was, on the whole, much less professional than it is today. Almost nobody involved in criminal justice was a full-time specialist. There were no detectives, probation officers, public defenders, or forensic scientists; even the district attorney worked at his job part-time. The jurors were of course total amateurs. In 1800 or 1870 no part of the system was particularly organized or bureaucratic. This even applied to what happened after conviction; the only way to get out of prison early was to appeal to the governor for a pardon. The governor in some states pardoned with a lavish hand. In any event, nothing formally guided his decisions.

Today the system is highly professionalized; this means, among other things, that the police and prosecutors can filter out the weakest cases, and toss them aside early in the process.

Answer the following questions:

1) What was a penal philosophy in the colonies?

2) What do you know about punishment in the colonies?

3) What does “murder in the first degree” mean?

4) What power did the jury have?

Find in the text above the English equivalents for the following words and expressions:

карательный, штрафной; уголовное судопроизводство; состав присяжных; присяжный заседатель; поджог; изнасилование; ограбление; кража со взломом; наказание; убийство первой степени; государственный обвинитель; уголовное обвинение; наказуемый; государственный защитник.

TASK 2. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate words from the box.

penal philosophy; prosecuting; criminal codes; probation officers; punishable by death; public defenders; conviction; criminal justice

(1) This even applied to what happened after ___________; the only way to get out of prison early was to appeal to the governor for a pardon.

(2) The ___________ was, on the whole, much less professional than it is today.

(3) The earliest ___________ mirrored the nasty life of pioneer settlements.

(4) There were no detectives, _________, _________, or forensic scientists.

(5) Only murder in the first degree was ____________.

(6) There was a simple _________: no one should be punished for crimes not clearly and openly labeled.

(7) People were supposed to do their own __________ – and pay for it themselves.

TASK 3. Study the text below, making sure you fully comprehend it. Where appropriate, consult English-Russian dictionaries and/or other references & source books on law.