Dissolution and separation of States especially threaten minorities, whose protection serves not only the interests of the successor State, but also that of the international community. As a minimum, successor States should continue the human rights treaties to which their predecessor was party. Furthermore, the international community imposed on the successor States of the Former Yugoslavia a series of additional obligations protecting minorities which largely exceeded the minority rights standards of the Cold War period. The international instruments imposed on the new States contributed to a crystallization of a higher minimum standard of minority protection which shall bind all new States tending to be legitimized.