Abstract
This chapter argues that any rights that have been secured through what Colin Williams called the ‘legislative turn’ in minority language policy tend to be rights held by the individual against the state. Against this backdrop, Dunbar analyses three recent pieces of legislation in Wales, all of which impose obligations on the government to consider the impact of a wide range of policy decisions on the language itself. He argues that this is an important development in language legislation, as it recognises that policy-making in areas which are not obviously related to language, such as economic development and land-use planning, can have a significant impact on a language. As such, these enactments move beyond the individual rights of speakers and recognise a broader communal interest in the language.
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Dunbar, R. (2022). Recent Legal Developments in Wales: Moving Beyond Individual to Group Rights?. In: McLeod, W., Dunbar, R., Jones, K., Walsh, J. (eds) Language, Policy and Territory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94346-2_7
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