Protection of Internal Minorities in Ethiopia: Assessing the Potential of Non-territorial Autonomy Arrangements
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Date
2020-06
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Publisher
AAU
Abstract
The international practice has revealed that individuals belonging to different minorities are
often not able to enjoy their human rights because of the discrimination they face. The same
holds true in Ethiopia since the long centralist history triggered ethnic inequalities.
Fortunately, following the system change, the FDRE Constitution was adopted and declared
ethnic federalism, inter alia, to guarantee the rights of ethnic minorities. The thesis, however,
argues that the existing ethnic-based territorial autonomy has again failed to accommodate
internal minorities. Therefore, it first scrutinizes the inadequacy of protection given to these
groups of people under the existing legal and institutional frameworks. Then, it recommends
two constitutional solutions. First, the existing ethnic-based territorial autonomy federal
system has to be kept intact with giving sufficient protection for the indigenous minorities.
Second, non-territorial autonomy as a complementary constitutional arrangement has to be
adopted to protect non-indigenous minorities.
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Keywords
Minority, territorial autonomy, non-territorial autonomy, indigenous minorities, non-indigenous minorities, FDRE Constitution, Regional constitution