A/HRC/55/51/Add.1 founding member of the United Nations, currently hosts 23 United Nations agencies 10 and has also shown engagement with efforts towards the realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.11 B. National framework 19. Paraguay should be commended for the efforts in recent years to enact legislation for advancing human rights in the country, despite the gaps and challenges identified by other United Nations human rights mechanisms. 1. Constitutional framework 20. The democratic Constitution of 1992, which serves as the basic charter of Paraguay, establishes a series of legal remedies to ensure the rule of law, such as unconstitutionality12 and habeas corpus,13 through a system of checks and balances. 21. The Constitution also prohibits discrimination, in article 46,14 whereas article 73 refers to the elimination of discriminatory content in education. 15 Articles 62 and 63 recognize Indigenous Peoples as a group and reaffirms the need to preserve their identities. 16 However, the lack of specific law on discrimination against specific groups of minorities, such as Indigenous Peoples, as religious and linguistic minorities may make the purpose of those provisions unachievable. 2. Legislative framework 22. The Special Rapporteur acknowledged during his visit that the administration in Paraguay had undertaken a multitude of positive steps to reinforce the legal framework and improve the situation and protection of human rights in the country, including of some minorities. The significant developments, which have been taking shape in recent years, are impressive. He wishes to emphasize the importance of those positive efforts. He commends the Government in particular for the legislation enacted for the purpose of addressing exclusion and discrimination, such as Law No. 5136/2013 on inclusive education and Decree No. 2837/2013, together with the Universal Design for Learning guidelines, which are aimed at fostering inclusion in education by proposing a curriculum that contemplates a variability of learning process and takes into account the diversity of the students. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 GE.23-23380 environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes (3–14 October 2022) and Special Rapporteur on minority issues (14–25 November 2022). See https://paraguay.un.org/es/about/our-team. In 2014, the country adopted the national development plan, 2030, which defines national development priorities in alignment with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Moreover, in 2020, Paraguay and the United Nations signed the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (2020–2024), which constitutes the strategic framework for the cooperation between the Organization and the State in the challenges related to sustainable development, contributing to the realization of national priorities within the framework of the 2030 Agenda. Art. 132. Art. 133. Article 46 states that all inhabitants of the Republic are equal in dignity and rights. Discrimination is not allowed. The State shall remove the obstacles and prevent the factors that maintain or encourage them. The protections established for unjust inequalities shall not be considered as discriminatory factors, but as egalitarian factors. Article 73 states that education’s purposes are the full development of the human personality and the promotion of freedom and peace, social justice, solidarity, cooperation and integration of peoples; respect for human rights and democratic principles, the affirmation of intellectual, moral and civic commitment, as well as the elimination of educational content of a discriminatory nature. Article 62 states that the Constitution recognizes the existence of Indigenous Peoples, defined as groups of culture prior to the formation and organization of the Paraguayan State. Article 63 states that the right of Indigenous Peoples to preserve and develop their ethnic identity in their respective habitat is recognized and guaranteed. They also have the right to freely apply their systems of political, social, economic, cultural and religious organization, as well as the voluntary subjection to their customary norms for the regulation of their internal coexistence. 5