Small indigenous peoples and the state: trends and prospects of mutual relations

Contemporary international legal regulation of relations between states and ethnic communities living on their territories is characterised by increased attention on the part of state authorities to these communities and the development of paternalism. The world has come to realise that the predatory expansion of more developed peoples into new territories has had a negative impact on the unique ethno-diversity of such regions, and that indigenous distinctive peoples, their minority languages, traditions and culture have begun to disappear irretrievably. This awareness led to the organisation of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages from 2022 to 2032 under the auspices of UNESCO.

The Russian Federation is a party to a number of international legal instruments and fulfils its obligations under the relevant ratified instruments. Appropriate measures are being taken to improve linguistic and educational legislation on the small indigenous minorities of the North, Siberia and the Far East. At the same time, Russia is not a party to the key international legal acts that create a unified ideological basis for the regulation of the relations under consideration, moreover, it has stopped participating in some international legal documents altogether.

The article examines the foundations of legal and ideological attitude to minority ethnic communities in the world in general and in the Russian Federation in particular, and pays special attention to the lacunas in legal regulation, caused, among other things, by the fragmented participation of our country in the mechanism of international legal regulation of relations of ethnic communities, which has a negative potential.