4  •  Guidance Note of the Secretary-General on Racial Discrimination and Protection of Minorities Discrimination (ICERD), and in regional instruments.3 Important additional guidance for the UN and other actors is provided in such key documents as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (1992) and the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (2001) and in the Outcome Document of the Durban Review Conference (2009). 5. The UN approach to racial discrimination needs to reflect the fact that racial discrimination encompasses “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life”.4 6. UN efforts to protect minorities are rooted in equality and non-discrimination, but they should also advance other elements of minority rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities to participate in decision-making and to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion and to use their own language. Implementation of such minority rights requires in many cases continuous measures.5 7. The UN can in many cases combine its efforts to combat and prevent racial discrimination and to advance minority protection, as these are frequently interlinked. On the one hand, standards and mechanisms devoted to combatting racial discrimination benefit minorities, who are often targets of racial discrimination. On the other hand, minority rights contribute to the efforts to combat racial discrimination, by directly reinforcing prohibition of racial discrimination and also through participatory rights and other rights that indirectly contribute to efforts to combat such discrimination. It is in recognition of these interlinkages that these two notions are addressed in one Guidance Note. 8. The UN pursues an inclusive approach to the concept of minorities, guided by the principle of self-identification and bearing in mind that there is no internationally agreed definition of the term. Using UN minority rights standards and mechanisms is not conditioned upon the use of the term minority in the domestic context, and the UN Human Rights Committee has stressed that the existence of an ethnic, religious or linguistic minority 3 See, e.g., International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; art. 26 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and the ILO Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111). For an overview of relevant international and regional standards and their monitoring mechanisms, see also Minority Rights: International Standards and Guidance for Implementation, OHCHR, 2010. 4 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Art 1(1). 5 CERD, in its general recommendation No. 32(209), has specified that “special measures should not be confused with specific rights pertaining to certain categories of person or community, such as, for example the rights of persons belonging to minorities to enjoy their own culture, profess and practise their own religion and use their own language […]. Such rights are permanent rights, recognized as such in human rights instruments, including those adopted in the context of the United Nations and its agencies”.