Language Rights in European Court of Human Rights Case Law

Language rights are not explicitly part of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, beyond some isolated references to language in a few isolated precepts. Nonetheless, it is true that the European Court of Human Rights has issued rulings on more than one occasion on the linguistic dimension of certain rights, for example, the right to one’s private and family life, the right to education, or freedom of expression, among others. This paper systematizes this European Court case law and demonstrates that while the protection of the individual continues to be the majority point of view, there has also been a certain opening up to the protection of rights in their collective dimension, to the extent that these rights are derived from belonging to existing minorities in member states.