General Prohibition of Discrimination in International Law: Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina

The paper refers to analysis of the main features of the precedent case initiated before the European Court of Human Rights - Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina and indicates correlation between the case and the general prohibition of discrimination in international law. The legal framework for elaboration of the respective case includes Article 14 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and corresponding Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 as well as a speculative comparison with other documents of international law in the domain of the prohibition of discrimination. Since the applicants’ discrimination resulted from legitimate provisions of the national legislation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is based on affiliation to an ethnic group, the author gives a critical review of the analysis of the socio-political circumstances at the time of drafting the disputable constitutional and other legal solutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the one side, and relevant international standards on the rights of national minorities, on the other side. The case implies the practice of international law to sanction cases of discrimination of people based on ethnicity, the goal of which is the improvement of the status of national minorities reflected in full affirmation of minority rights and freedoms proclaimed in international documents.