RATAC (School of Law) for editing volume 2 of the book series "Asia-Pacific Human Rights Documents and Resources" ($1,600); presentation of paper on minority rights and ethnic conflicts in Budapest ($360).

The main activities of the Centre in 1999 has been trying to obtain funding for a collaborative project with the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission on ethnic conflicts and work on the inaugural issue of, the Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law.

The inaugural issue of the journal is coming out in the first half of 2000 and will be distributed worldwide by Kluwer Law International, one of the world’s leading publishers in international law.

Despite numerous funding applications, including with the ARC Research grants, no funding has been provided for the collaborative project with the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission, which is somewhat ironic given the increase levels of ethnic tensions and violence which have occurred in Indonesia since the Centre’s efforts to work in this area in cooperation with one of Indonesia’s leading human rights organisations.

Among other activities of the Centre has been the Director’s participation in a large number of regional and international seminars and conferences in order to promote the Centre’s outside stature. These included presentations at the following events:

"International Law, Human Rights and Minority Rights: A Legal Approach to Ethnic Conflict Prevention", INCORE seminar presentation, Aberfoyle House, Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 29 November.

"International Law, Human Rights and Minority Rights: A Legal Approach to Ethnic Conflict Prevention", Nineteenth Biennial Conference on the Law of the World, World Jurist Association, Budapest, Hungary and Vienna, Austria, 4 October 1999.

"States Versus Minorities: A Legal Human Rights Approach to Understanding the Causes of Ethnic Conflicts in Asia", Fourth International Conference of the Ethnic Studies Network, Moscow, 10 June 1999.

"Respect for Minority Rights and Ethnic Conflict Prevention: Future Trends", Seminar presentation at the Human Rights Law Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK, 29 April 1999.

The Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law is already essentially "self-funding", but still requires a great deal of work in terms of ensuring its smooth and continuous functioning. An Asia-wide operation such as a law journal requires many volunteers, as well as partners such as LAWASIA, and NGOs in different parts of the region. This has begun and will be continued in the next year. A number of students have been involved, as well as academics from other countries in Asia. Interest in the journal is already high, with various articles being submitted and indications of interest from a number of sources.

"Asia-Pacific Human Rights Documents and Resources", Volume II, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, Netherlands.

"Tolerance and Inclusion: The Convergence of human rights and the Work of Tove Skutnabb-Kangas", to be published in Rights to Language: Equity, Power and Education, Robert Phillipson (ed.), Mahwah, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

"Les droits de l’Homme et la protection des minorités linguistiques", in Langues et droits, Hervé Guillorel and Geneviève Koubi, eds, Bruylant, Bruxelles.

"The Existing Rights of Minorities and International Law", in Language: A Right and a Resource (Approaching Linguistic Human Rights), Miklós Kontra, Robert Phillipson, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and Tibor Várady, eds, Central European University Press, Budapest.

"Equality and Non-Discrimination: Fundamental Principles of Minority Language Rights", (1999) International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, Volume 6, No. 3, pp. 307-318, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, Netherlands.

"Non-Discrimination in Language Policies and International Law" (in Japanese), to be published in Seikei University Law Journal, Tokyo, Japan.