A/78/195
Report of the Special Rapporteur on minority issues,
Fernand de Varennes
Summary
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Fernand de
Varennes, provides a summary at the end of his six years at the helm of the United
Nations mandate on minority issues. In the report, he highlights noteworthy
accomplishments and developments, but also the daunting global challenges related
to promoting and protecting the human rights of minorities. He also summarizes his
country visits, communications and other mandate-related activities during the period
2022–2023.
In the thematic segment of the present report, the Special Rapporteur expands
on the recent attention given to the place of the human rights of minorities in the
institutions, structures and initiatives of the United Nations, as well as discussions
and recommendations on how to address the growing denial of the rights of minorities
worldwide. He identifies concerns regarding the impact of such lacklustre
acknowledgement and defence of their human rights as a signific ant factor in many
of the major threats to global peace and stability. The world is currently facing the
largest number of violent conflicts and the largest number of internally displaced
persons since even before the Second World War, tsunamis of hate spe ech and hate
crimes in a large number of countries, and potential massive increases in the global
number of stateless persons. In all of these crises, minorities are overwhelmingly the
targets or victims, including representing more than three quarters of those who have
been denied citizenship and are experiencing statelessness. As the Special Rapporteur
outlines in the present report, this situation may be in no small part owing to the
institutional failure to recognize and address the root causes of many of these
phenomena: the bias, racism, scapegoating and intolerance that have been increasing
worldwide, often accompanying new forms of exclusionary nationalism. The à la
carte enforcement of human rights, omitting or disregarding the rights of minorities,
undermines the very foundations of the Charter of the United Nations and the promise
of the universality of international human rights, 75 years after the proclamation of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and goes a long way towards explaining
the failures in conflict prevention and in the eradication of statelessness, and the
failure to prevent in any way the explosive growth of hate speech, hate crimes and
even calls to violence and genocide.
In November 2022, on the anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the
Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic
Minorities, the Secretary-General made the following statement: “Thirty years on –
the world is falling short. Far short. We are not dealing with gaps – we are dealing
with outright inaction and negligence in the protection of minority rights.” In response
to that admission, the Special Rapporteur provides guidance on the way forward to
address the international community’s “inaction and negligence”, whic h has
contributed to a more unequal, unstable and violent world, and he identifies new
approaches to new emerging threats and dangers for minorities, especially those
stemming from artificial intelligence.
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