Integration and Special Rights

Abstract

For almost 25 years, the Council of Europe and the Danish authorities have entertained a fruitless and stalled dialogue on an option to apply the Council’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in the societal integration of Greenlanders living in Denmark. So far, the Danish authorities have not been willing to award the Greenlanders any special rights citing their individual and universal rights to non-discrimination and equal civil rights as sufficient for integration. The refusal is based on the authorities’ specific interpretation of the status of Greenland and Greenlanders under international conventions. A review of the dialogue from 1999 till today set against a short Nordic-Canadian perspective reveals that a combination of special rights and universal equal civil rights puts the view of the Danish authorities in question. This seems, therefore, to indicate an unwillingness on behalf of the authorities to consider feasible alternatives.