6 INTRODUCTION All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (ICEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (MWC), in the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (No. 169), and in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination in Education. Some of these treaties refer explicitly to the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples 2. Others have read their rights into the provisions of the treaty.3 There are also international declarations that address economic, social and cultural rights. Declarations reflect a degree of consensus among the international community and create an expectation that the rights within them will be met, as well as informing the content of the obligations found in binding conventions and covenants. A notable example is the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (UNDM). The UNDM extends the language of Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) by recognizing that persons belonging to minorities have the positive right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, and to use their own language4 and that the state should actively create the conditions that ensure the existence and identity of the minority group.5 The UNDM is also one among many instruments to articulate the importance of effective participation by minorities in decisions that affect them – a subject that surfaces throughout this guide. The Declaration on the Right to Development (DRD) recognizes that equal attention and urgent consideration should be given to the participatory 6 and non-discriminatory implementation, promotion and protection of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights,7 the failure of which presents an obstacle to development.8 UNESCO has a variety of declarations addressing human rights and the preservation of cultural diversity, and a draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples currently being negotiated at the UN also includes a range of relevant provisions. At the regional level, various economic, social and cultural rights are guaranteed in both treaties and declarations. These include: the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) and in its Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa;9 the Protocol of San Salvador to the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), and the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man; the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that protects inter alia, the right to education and possession of property, and the revised European Social Charter. Elsewhere, economic, social and cultural elements of the central rights protected form part of the provisions as found in the European