A/79/169 self-executing provision; it therefore requires specific measures, at the national level, to be realized and implemented. The Human Rights Committee, in its general comment No. 23 on article 27 (CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.5), “observes that this article establishes and recognizes a right which is conferred on individuals belonging to minority groups and which is distinct from, and additional to, all the other rights which, as individuals in common with everyone else, they are already entitled to enjoy under the Covenant”. It is therefore on the establishment and implementation of these additional rights at the national level that the present report shall be focused. 13. When, in 2005, the Working Group on Minorities of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights adopted a commentary to the Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.5/2005/2), it also recognized that the Declaration was built on the same logic of the additionality of minority rights to universal human rights. 5 These additional rights are to be found in domestic legal systems. This is perfectly in line with the structure of minority rights in the United Nations human rights architecture. When the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it simultaneously decided, in the same resolution, “not to deal in a specific provision with the question of minorities in the text of this Declaration”, because “it is difficult to adopt a uniform solution of this complex and delicate question, which has special aspects in each State in which it arises”. For that reason, the very substance of minority rights cannot be enacted at the international level and needs to be realized and substantiated at the national, or even sometimes – when institutional arrangements allow – at the subnational level. Even the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe, 6 the only plurilateral treaty dealing with minority issues, considers that, “in view of the range of different situations and problems to be resolved, a choice was made for a framework Convention which contains mostly programme -type provisions setting out objectives which the Parties undertake to pursue. These provisions, which will not be directly applicable, leave the States concerned a measure of discretion in the implementation of the objectives which they have undertaken to achieve, thus enabling them to take particular circumstances into account”. 7 As a logical consequence, “the implementation of the principles set out in this framework Convention shall be done through national legislation and appropriate governmental policies”. 8 This two-level structure of minority rights constitutes the DNA of minority rights. 14. It further needs to be understood that minority rights are of a composite nature. They are all qualified as “minority rights” because of their subjects (persons belonging to minorities), but they are not all of the same nature. Some may be described as claim rights – such as “the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, and to use their own language, in private and in __________________ 5 6 7 8 6/20 “The Declaration builds on and adds to the rights contained in the International Bill of Human Rights and other human rights instruments by strengthening and clarifying those rights which make it possible for persons belonging to minorities to preserve and develop their group identity. The human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights must at all times be respected in the process, including the principle of non -discrimination between individuals.” (E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.5/2005/2, para. 4). European Treaty Series No. 157, adopted on 10 November 1994 and open for signature on 1 February 1995. Currently ratified by 39 European States. Council of Europe, “Explanatory Report to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities”, February 1995, para. 11. Adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe simultaneously with the Convention. Council of Europe, “Explanatory Report to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities”, para. 13. 24-13136