During the series of wars and ethnic conflicts with serious human rights violations and ethnic cleansing in ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the international community reacted through crisis management. Nevertheless, the EU is still faced with unresolved problems such as the „final status" of Kosovo, the possible break-up of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and the question of how to deal with the problem of accommodating ethnic and territorial claims in order to prevent spill-over effects in forms of new conflicts and refugees in the region itself and into the EU.

Moreover, a coherent EU-policy of the new neighbourhood (Caucasus, Ukraine, Russia) face the same problem of how to accommodate ethnic and cultural diversity in order to prevent serious human rights violations in existing and possible future conflicts. The overall objective of the project is to analyse which status human and minority rights did and do have in all phases of ethnic conflicts, and, finally, in the phase of re-construction and reconciliation. As a parallel process the development of the EU foreign policy and its shift from re-active crisis management to regional stabilisation and association with the prospect of full EU-membership will be analysed. In this regard the role of human and minority rights for the external relations of the EU will be covered.

Taking the Western Balkans as a case study, the aim is to develop a specific European concept of "Unity in Diversity" by providing conceptual frameworks and legal instruments which are balancing individual human rights and minority related group rights for the underlying problem of how to accommodate ethnic and cultural diversity in the necessary process of a re-construction of functioning states and civil and multi-ethnic societies.

For more about MIRICO download brochure or power point presentation.

Please note that the reports compiled in the frame of this project can be downloaded under "Project results"

MIRICO Project is funded under the Sixth Framework Programme of the European Commission