A/HRC/53/60 I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 52/36, in which the Council requested the Special Rapporteur to submit to it an annual report. The Special Rapporteur’s report outlines her vision for her tenure as the sixth Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. 2. To inform the report, the Special Rapporteur published a call for submissions from Member States and other stakeholders, including civil society organizations, international organizations and national human rights institutions. The Special Rapporteur extends her thanks to all Member States and other stakeholders who submitted information. She has drawn upon the inputs provided in the preparation of the report and remains open to an ongoing dialogue with all relevant stakeholders on the strategic focus of her mandate. 3. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur summarizes the activities that she has undertaken since the commencement of her tenure on 1 November 2022 and provides a summary of the activities undertaken under the mandate since its establishment. She elaborates on the scope of her mandate and provides analysis of the provisions within international law upon which she intends to ground the fulfilment of her mandate. She also sets out the methods of work to which she intends to adhere and outlines initial priority areas relating to her approach to the mandate and thematic topics. Finally, she offers conclusions and targeted recommendations on the ways in which Member States and other stakeholders can cooperate in the fulfilment of the mandate. II. Summary of activities 4. The Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance was appointed by the Human Rights Council in October 2022, during its fifty-first session. She is the sixth Special Rapporteur appointed under the mandate. She took up her functions on 1 November 2022. 5. Since the beginning of her tenure, the Special Rapporteur has attended a number of international events and conferences. In December 2022, she attended the inaugural meeting of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in Geneva, where she gave a presentation on the racialized causes and consequences of the climate crisis. In the same month, she spoke at the eleventh Forum on Business and Human Rights and met with the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination at its 108th session in Geneva. In March 2023, the Special Rapporteur attended the eleventh national conference on nondiscrimination, in Malaysia, which was focused on the impact of the Internet on racism and racial discrimination in the country. 6. At the time of drafting, the Special Rapporteur had sent 28 communications to Member States 1 since the beginning of her mandate. Topics addressed by such communications included the introduction of caste, which has been recognized by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination as a form of descent-based discrimination, as a ground for discrimination within national legal provisions providing protection from discrimination. Another issue addressed was the nexus between racial discrimination and repressive migration governance, hate speech and xenophobic violence. The Special Rapporteur strongly encourages all countries that have received communications and have not yet sent an official reply to do so at their earliest convenience. 7. As at 30 April 2023, the Special Rapporteur had sent four country visit requests to countries of priority. She encourages the countries that have not yet responded to her country visit requests to do so at their earliest convenience. 8. Since the commencement of her mandate, the Special Rapporteur has published four calls for submissions to inform the reports she will submit to the Human Rights Council at its fifty-third session and to the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session, including for 1 2 The figures reflect internal data collection by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and include communications not yet made public. GE.23-09089