Minority Rights in the Amhara National Regional State

This work examined minority rights protection in one of the regional states in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the Amhara Region. Against the background of the millennial despotic, feudalistic regimes of Ethiopia, it adopted a federal and democratic Constitution in 1994 which came into force in 1995. The Constitution enshrined the unconditional right to self-determination up to secession for every ethnic groups of the country, provided they meet the definition of 'nation, nationality or people'. While the great majority of ethnic groups of the country have achieved nation, nationality or people status and some regional states are named after their own ethnic names and have started enjoying self-administration, there are ethnic groups neither recognized as nation, nationality or people, nor are they enjoying self-administration. The research thus tried to find out the reasons for failures of recognition and of self-administration by some ethnic groups in the midst of extensive constitutional guarantee.