This book explores why and how ethnonational minorities - specifically Roma, Hungarians, and Muslims in Central and Southeastern Europe (CSEE) - engage in legal mobilisation.This groundbreaking volume examines the legal mobilisation of ethnonational minorities CSEE amid growing challenges to democracy and minority protection. While the region has experienced multiple waves of minority rights regimes - from post-World War I treaties to post-1989 European integration - suspicion toward minorities’ perceived “dual loyalties” has endured.Focusing on three key groups rooted in the former Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires - Hungarian minorities in states surrounding Hungary, the Roma across the region, and Muslims in the Balkans - the book explores how these communities harness the law to assert their rights under increasingly hostile conditions. Through detailed case studies of legal advocacy, grassroots legal activism, and strategic litigation, it illuminates the diverse ways minorities engage with national and transnational legal frameworks to secure recognition, resist discrimination, and shape political agendas.By comparing their strategies over time, the volume uncovers how legal action intersects with political and community mobilisation, showing how minorities adapt to shifting contexts; from the relatively open, EU-driven environment of the 1990s and 2000s to today’s more restrictive, illiberal regimes.Through its naunced analysis, this book will appeal to scholars and practitioners of minority rights, legal mobilisation, European politics, and socio-legal studies. It provides essential insights into how marginalised groups continue to fight for justice through law, even as the rule of law itself comes under threat.
Lilla Farkas is Adjunct Professor at ELTE Social Science Faculty, Hungary.Beáta Huszka is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, UK.Zsolt Körtvélyesi is Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, Central European University, Austria.
Part I: General1. Introduction, Lilla Farkas (ELTE Social Science Faculty, Hungary), Beáta Huszka (University of Oxford, UK), Zsolt Körtvélyesi (Central European University, Austria)2. Special Rights, Equal Rights, and the Human Rights of Minorities, Bruno de Witte (Maastricht University, the Netherlands) and Kristin Henrard (Vrije University Brussel, Belgium)3. Collective Legal Action for the Rights of Minorities in a Transnational Space, Lilla Farkas (ELTE Social Science Faculty, Hungary) and Zsolt Körtvélyesi (Central European University, Austria)Part II: Legal Quests of the Roma in Central and Southeastern Europe4. Legal Mobilisation to Desegregate Education, Dezideriu Gergely (European Roma Rights Centre, Hungary) and Lilla Farkas (ELTE Social Science Faculty, Hungary)5. Legal Mobilisation Related to Housing, Theodoros Alexandridis (European Roma Rights Centre, Hungary) and Panayote Dimitras (Harvard University, USA) 6. Legal Mobilisation Related to Hate Speech in Bulgaria, Krassimir Kanev (Bulgarian Helsinki Committee)Part III: Legal Activism of the Muslim Minorities in the Balkans7. Albanians and Bosniaks in Serbia, Jelena Loncar and Miloš Hrnjaz (University of Belgrade, Serbia)8. Legal Mobilisation for Roma Rights in Macedonia, Dragana Drndarevska (University College London, UK)9. Muslim Minorities – ‘Old’ and ‘New’ – and Human Rights Litigation in Greece, Dia Anagnostou (Panteion University, Greece)Part IV: Hungarian Legal Mobilisation in Central Eastern Europe10. In the Shadows: Minority Hungarian Communities and the Kin-State Politics of Budapest Governments, Nándor Bárdi (ELTE Centre for Social Sciences, Hungary)11. Legal Mobilisation for Language and Educational Rights of Hungarians in Romania, Beáta Huszka (University of Oxford, UK)12. Mobilising for the Rights of Ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina: Political and Legal Avenues, Anna Krisztián (Leiden University, the Netherlands)13. Minority Activism for Bilingual Signs in Slovakia: All in the Same Boat?János Fiala-Butora (University of Galway, Ireland)Conclusions, Lilla Farkas (ELTE Social Science Faculty, Hungary), Beáta Huszka (University of Oxford, UK), Zsolt Körtvélyesi (Central European University, Austria)