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 significant 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 speech 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”, which 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.