UN Convention on Genocide

Linguistic diversity maintenance requires linguistic human rights. Cultural and linguistic diversity, after all, has historically been threatened as a result of human rights violations. This is especially evident in the case of education, where, for example, in residential schools, students have been forced to communicate in a foreign language. Few national or international organizations enforce stringent linguistic educational human rights. For this reason, the UN established a convention on linguistic genocide in 1948 that has since been ratified by many nations. Its specific and stringent application is a prerequisite to providing linguistic human rights and promoting global linguistic diversity, and its implications for deaf people are far-reaching.