A/HRC/43/47 shall protect the existence and the … linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity”, adding in the next paragraph that they “shall adopt appropriate legislative and other measures to achieve those ends”. One could therefore expect that this would entail significant measures for the use of minority languages in education, since, to state the obvious, as does a quote attributed to French historian Camille Jullian, “une langue qu’on n’enseigne pas est une langue qu’on tue” (“you kill a language if you do not teach it”). 33. The central importance of a minority’s language in education was furthermore left in no doubt both in the large number of responses from various States and other interested parties to the questionnaire that was issued with the objective of collecting information from the contributors involved in the topic of the present report, 3 as well as the almost 1,000 participants – including States and international and regional organizations – that provided information and insights during the three regional forums conducted in 2019 on education, language and the human rights of minorities, and during the Forum on Minority Issues held in Geneva in November 2019. The point cannot be understated: language is perhaps the central defining characteristic of humanity. “Language is the key to inclusion. Language is at the centre of human activity, self-expression and identity. Recognizing the primary importance that people place on their own language fosters the kind of true participation in development that achieves lasting results.”4 B. The growing visibility of language in education as a human rights issue 34. After 1945, with the establishment of the United Nations, the emphasis was on the universal protection of individual rights and freedoms instead of what has at times been perceived as the more “collective” minority approach under the League of Nations. This, however, is not quite the full picture: some peace treaties concluded immediately following the Second World War included general human rights and some specific minority provisions. These treaties, just as in the case of their predecessors before the Second World War, contained mainly human rights standards and a few specific provisions focusing on “resident” minorities. Thus the Treaty of Peace with Italy of 1947 contained, in addition to the usual general provisions on human rights, provisions guaranteeing citizenship to all those normally residing in Italy who did not acquire nationality in a neighbouring State (and in the main targeting the largest affected minorities) and, in annex IV, specific sections on minorities, in relation to the German-speaking minority, particularly in education: 1. German-speaking inhabitants of the Bolzano Province and of the neighbouring bilingual townships of the Trento Province will be assured complete equality of rights with the Italian-speaking inhabitants, within the framework of special provisions to safeguard the ethnical character and the cultural and economic development of the German-speaking element. In accordance with legislation already enacted or awaiting enactment the said German-speaking citizens will be granted in particular: (a) elementary and secondary teaching in the mother tongue. 35. Article 6 of the State Treaty for the Re-establishment of an Independent and Democratic Austria (Austrian State Treaty) of 1955 includes, among other bilateral or peace treaties of this period and like most treaties relating to the rights of minorities, known as “minority treaties” of the interwar period, a provision guaranteeing, without discrimination, “all measures necessary to secure to all persons under Austrian jurisdiction, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion, the enjoyment of human rights and of the fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression, of press and publication, of religious worship, of political opinion and of public meeting”. More to the point, article 7 grants to Austrian nationals who are members of the Croat and Slovene minorities in the 3 4 6 See annex. UNESCO Bangkok, Why Language Matters for the Millennium Development Goals (UNESCO, 2012), p. 1.