Steinar Bryn participated at the Conference on “The Framework Convention: a key tool to managing diversity through minority rights”

October 11, 2016, Strasbourg- Prof. Steinar Bryn, Founder of Nansen Dialogue Network participated at the Conference on “The Framework Convention: a key tool to managing diversity through minority rights” held in Strasbourg. The conference was organized by the Council of Europe and the goal was to launch the Advisory Committee’s Fourth Thematic Commentary on the application of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), entitled “The Framework Convention: a key tool to managing diversity through minority rights”. The purpose of the newly launched document is to consolidate the manner in which the Advisory Committee has interpreted, over the years, the scope of application of the FCNM, bearing in mind specific societal, economic and demographic developments.

During his keynote address, prof. Steinar Bryn spoke about the emerging need for investing on the development of shared societies as well as the necessity for integrated education. Prof. Bryn highlight that only integrated and inclusive societies can insure the effective protection and advancement of minority rights and stressed out the significance of social dialogue and reconciliation as necessary components during the process. Prof. Bryn provided an overview about the current social issues related to multiculturalism being challenged by cultural parallelism and provided concrete examples and success stories from the dialogue sessions within NDN and the work of the Nansen Dialogue Centres in the Western Balkan. Mr. Bryn highlighted the success of the Nansen model for integrated education and the NDC Skopje Training Centre for integrated education that have contributed on the advancement of integration processes in education and have served as an example for many regional and international educational institutions.