Guidance Note of the Secretary-General on Racial Discrimination and Protection of Minorities  •  5 in a given State party does not depend upon a decision by that State party but requires to be established by objective criteria.6 Standards to combat racial discrimination and minority rights can be also invoked by indigenous peoples, as a complement to the specific standards and initiatives that have been developed to address the particular concerns faced by them, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169). 9. While this Guidance Note and the Declaration on Minority Rights focus on the rights of persons belonging to “national or ethnic, religious and linguistic” minorities, there are persons belonging to other groups that are regularly in a non-dominant position and merit specific UN attention from the perspective of non-discrimination and other human rights standards, including, for example, stateless persons, migrants, victims of forced displacement, persons with disabilities, people living with HIV and lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) persons. Their concerns also frequently involve multiple discrimination, including where a person belonging to a national, ethnic, religious or linguistic minority is also discriminated against on other grounds such as disability or sexual orientation. III. Guiding principles for effective UN action 1. Ensure coordinated engagement of all three pillars 10. Combatting racial discrimination and protecting minorities need to be consistently integrated into the work of the UN at global, regional and country levels. The UN should proactively seize opportunities to support initiatives that pursue these goals, including with regional organizations, governments, civil society and the private sector. Given the relevance of these challenges to all three pillars of the UN, it is essential that UN action in this area engage the entire UN system and that coordination mechanisms between entities ranging from UNCTs and “Delivering as One” initiatives to a diverse range of related global-level mechanisms, such as the UN Development Group’s Human Rights Mainstreaming Mechanism (UNDG HRM) and the UN Network on Racial Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, actively support coordination and cooperation in this sphere. 2. Pursue a human rights–based approach 11. The principles of equality and non-discrimination are cornerstones of the UN’s human rights–based approach. All entities of the UN system are governed by the UN Charter, which embodies these principles. Therefore, UN action and policies in the spheres related to racial discrimination and minority protection must be guided by international standards and recom- 6 The UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 23: The rights of minorities (Art. 27), 4 August 1994, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.5, General Comment No. 23.