Veto rights have been described as the "ultimate weapon" available to minorities in a power
sharing system within an ethnically divided society.2
On the one hand, veto rights over laws or
decisions affecting a minority's vital interests offer a minority a powerful guarantee that these
interests cannot be overridden by majority voting. On the other hand, unless carefully designed
and used sparingly – as a last resort – veto rights may have an immobilizing, ethnically divisive
or destabilizing effect on a power sharing system. For the purpose of this paper, "power
sharing" refers to the participation of all major ethnic groups in political decision-making
processes, and a "veto" ("I forbid" in Latin) to a power to block, prevent or suspend a draft law
or proposed measure.
This paper will argue that veto rights are not always the best tool for protecting a minority's vital
interests. Examples supporting this view will be taken from Macedonia and Northern Ireland,
where recent experiences of inter-ethnic tensions and violence have been followed by
experiments with power sharing. The paper will begin by briefly outlining the ethnic
composition, history of ethnic conflict and power sharing arrangements in these territories. It will
then examine key issues relating to minority veto rights, including identifying the veto holder,
defining the "vital interests" of the minority, and managing deadlocks or political crises that may
follow the exercise of a veto. This examination will show that practical difficulties associated
with minority veto rights include their potential to immobilize a political decision-making process,
to reinforce existing ethnic divisions, and to have a confrontational and destabilizing effect
within a power sharing system.
The final section will put forward an alternative approach to protecting the vital interests of
minorities that relies partly, but much less heavily, on veto rights. In Belgium, a country with a
long tradition of accommodating deep divisions between its Flemish and Walloon communities,
each ethnic group is granted a high level of non-territorial autonomy over vital interests such as
education, language and culture, making it much less dependent on veto rights as a means of
protecting its vital interests. For decisions that still require veto protection (e.g. in fields reserved
to central government that affect the vital interests of an ethnic group), Belgium has a unique
"Alarm Bell Procedure" (which I will define as a "soft veto"). This “soft veto” reduces the
likelihood of procedural abuse by opponents of power sharing, encourages mediation between
different communities to end post-veto deadlock and reach a mutually acceptable solution, and
generally minimizes the destabilizing effect of traditional vetoes (or "hard vetoes"), which create
clear winners and losers.