Mobilising for racial equality in Europe : Roma rights and transnational justice

Abstract

The thesis provides a transnational account of Roma rights activism over the last thirty years with a focus on five Central and Eastern European countries, where the majority of the European Union’s Roma live. It contributes to scholarly debate by (i) mapping ethnic/racial justice related legal opportunities; (ii) taking stock of legally focused non-governmental organisations; (iii) charting legal mobilisation in courts and enforcement agencies; (iv) presenting an alternative account of the transplantation of public interest litigation, and (v) ‘mapping the middle’ between dominant and critical narratives about the Open Society Foundations and white Europeans in the Roma rights field. Finding that international advocacy and litigation alone have been insufficient to generate social change, the thesis highlights the salience of indigenous practices. It points to the shortcomings of the elitist conception of legal mobilisation characterised by top-down, planned legal action and a focus of international NGOs. The thesis proposes to shift the limelight to the financial resources of strategic litigation, to a broad conception of collective legal action, and the necessity of investigating the role private individuals, NGOs, as well as public agencies play in promoting racial equality in general and Roma rights in particular in a transnational field. By scrutinising the ethno-political critique of Roma rights activism and pointing to its conflation with the critique of litigation - that resonates on both sides of the Atlantic - the thesis navigates between liberal internationalism and ethno-nationalism by acknowledging and celebrating organic cross-border cooperation, in other words “good transnationalism.”