Detecting Minorities via Historical Threats

The view that minorities are often threatened has led Thomas Simon to advocate a definition based on the degree of harm that is done to a group. Simon looks at history The historical record of oppression unleashed by dominant groups locates 

Simon s approach leaves a lot of open questions, some of them inherent in international law. Who decides when a group is harmed because of being a group What about the state s monopoly on the use of force Simon looks towards physical violence, but a minority can be oppressed by many other means such as banning the use of the language or discrimination in electimi laws. 

Alfredsson agrees on this point with Simon. See Alfredsson (2005), p. 168. 

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