"...For more than two centuries, European law and philosophy have been preoccupied with liberating individuals from groups, whether it be the family, church, class, or state. Thus while the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 acknowledged the psychological significance of social life, refering vaguely to the individual?s "duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible," it made no distinction between "community" and "state," and made no provision for the protection of groups other than the state itself. Its vision was restricted to the autonomy of individuals, and for the better part of forty years, every mention of group rights (or individual responsibilities) has invited charges of recidivism and statism. All around us, current events are challenging the usefulness of this traditional view. Linguistic, religious, national and ethnic factors are implicated in the great majority of civil disorders and "bush wars," aggravated by disparities in economic power that often seem as great within states as between North and South. The collective identity and rights of intermediate sized groups — religious congregations, ethnic communities, families — is no longer merely an academic proposition. On the contrary, there is growing awareness that according such groups collective legal identity and rights may be absolutely essential for resolving many of the tensions in today?s world without violence. My thesis is simple: recognizing the rights of groups other than States is a basic tool of peace..."