International Law and Minority Protection: The Fate of the Greeks of Imbros and Tenedos

In this essay a largely forgotten human rights issue involving the fate of the Greek-in-origin population that inhabited the Turkish islands of Imbros and Tenedos is examined. Exempted from the Greek-Turkish population-exchange agreements concluded following the end of World War I, the Greek population of the two islands was granted specific civic, cultural, and religious rights by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. The treaty remains valid to this day. Turkey deliberately violated the rights of this population because of its ethnicity, religion, and language. The author analyzes the methods used by Turkey to ethnically cleanse the two islands and the options available to the former residents of these islands as well as to the governments of Greece and Turkey to resolve the documented violations of the Treaty of Lausanne and of the European Convention on Human Rights.