ZaöRV 72 (2012), 309-351 Creating Federal Regions – Minority Protection versus Sustainability Bertus de Villiers* I. Introduction 310 II. Relevance of Minorities when Creating Regions 311 III. India 313 1. Process to Change State Boundaries 315 2. Role of Language in State Reorganisation 316 3. Ongoing Demands for More States 319 4. The Future of State Reorganisation 321 IV. Nigeria 322 1. From Three to 36 States 324 2. The Future 328 V. South Africa 331 1. Two Stage Process 332 2. Demarcation of the Provinces 333 3. Soft Boundaries 337 4. The Future 338 VI. Ethiopia 340 1. Self-Determination of Ethnic Groups 342 2. Minorities without a State 346 VII. Guidelines to Create Federal Regions 348 Abstract One of the major challenges that face emerging federations is to create federal regions that could constitute the basis for second tier governments and representation in the second chamber of parliament. Young federations usually do not have agreed historical regions that should form the basis of regional government. In contrast to the older, more established federations, * BA Law, LL.B, LL.D, Member of the State Administrative Tribunal of Western Austra- lia. He is a Visiting Fellow of the Law Faculty of the University of Western Australia. He is an inaugural Fellow of the Western Australian Institute of Dispute Management under the auspices of the Murdoch University and admitted as a legal practitioner in Australia and South Africa. He was closely involved during the constitutional negotiations in South Africa from 1990-1996. He recently acted as a foreign expert in the Forum of Federation’s leadership training project in Ethiopia on federalism and intergovernmental relations. The author acknowledges with great appreciation the grant made available by the Alexan- der von Humboldt Stiftung to facilitate the research on which this publication is based. The opinions expressed herein are entirely those of the author. http://www.zaoerv.de/ © 2012, Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht