70 LABOUR RIGHTS The ICCPR includes a provision on trade union rights (Art. 22). In Article 8 it prohibits slavery, the slave trade, and all forms of forced and compulsory labour. A provision of particular importance to minorities and indigenous peoples is Article 27, which protects the rights of persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language. The ICERD Article 5 obliges ratifying countries to guarantee the right to equality before the law with regard to the rights to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, to protection against unemployment, to equal pay for equal work, and to just and favourable remuneration. Other UN instruments such as the ICEDAW, should not be forgotten. It is increasingly accepted that discrimination multiplies if one is, for instance, both indigenous and a woman. All the general human rights instruments of the UN are applicable to work-related situations, and to discrimination. The ILO system The ILO’s mission is to promote opportunities of men and women to obtain decent and productive work.2 The ILO promotes fundamental rights and principles at work and their application, and pays particular attention to groups that are socially or economically disadvantaged in relation to the society in which they live. The protection of ethnic minorities in the world of work, and of indigenous and tribal peoples, is of central concern. ILO standards emphasize the need to ensure equality of all. This approach is built on the basis of the rights and dignity of the individual.3 However, ILO standards also take into account the necessity to promote and protect minority rights by addressing the situation of such groups as a whole and aim to give those affected a voice in this process. ILO standards on non-discrimination and equality, migrant workers and indigenous and tribal peoples play a major role in protecting minorities, but the fundamental human rights Conventions of the ILO concerning forced labour, freedom of association and collective bargaining, and child labour are also relevant. In 1998 the ILO adopted the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work as a promotional instrument. It requires all members, even if they have not ratified the Conventions to respect, promote and realize the fundamental rights that are the subject of those Conventions, including: (a) freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining (b) the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour (c) the effective abolition of child labour (d) the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.’