A/HRC/40/53 asserted that the rest of the century should be dedicated to enabling the realization of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That reflects the spirit of the cultural rights project. 7. The Special Rapporteur pays tribute to the diverse States and civil society actors that have supported the creation of the cultural rights mandate. She looks to those actors, and to many others, to collaborate with her and her successors in the realization of the goals of the mandate. All States have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil cultural rights, and the States involved in creating the mandate should demonstrate leadership in that regard. 8. In order to collect the views of States and other stakeholders about the achievements and challenges of the first decade of the mandate, the Special Rapporteur distributed a questionnaire in September 2018. Responses were received from 10 States, 12 national human rights institutions and 27 other stakeholders. 4 The Special Rapporteur is grateful to all who contributed. II. Overview of the work of the mandate since 2009 9. Until 2009, the majority of the work done by the United Nations concerning cultural rights addressed questions regarding minorities and indigenous peoples. Major progress had been made regarding the cultural rights of national, ethnic and religious minorities and of indigenous peoples, particularly since 1990.5 However, the various rights listed under article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were given little general attention in State party reports and many parts of the article had not yet been interpreted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 10. While advocates of minority and indigenous rights and some pioneering civil society groups in the field of cultural rights strongly supported work on cultural rights prior to the creation of the mandate, some States and civil society stakeholders were cautious about such rights. Some considered them not to be individual rights, or even human rights at all, but rather issues relegated to “culture” and therefore falling under the responsibility of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Some feared that their recognition would threaten States and others that they would undermine the universality of human rights and be used to justify traditional norms and practices that violate human rights. 11. The year 2009 was a watershed moment for cultural rights in the United Nations system, with the adoption of general comment No. 21 (2009) on the right of everyone to take part in cultural life by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, clarifying article 15 (1) (a) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the creation of a special procedures mandate in the field of cultural rights. At that time, one of the main challenges was to ensure that cultural rights would be understood as being applicable to everyone. It was also critical to clarify the position of cultural rights within the universal, indivisible and interdependent human rights system. Another main challenge mentioned in the resolution creating the mandate was defining the relationship between cultural rights and cultural diversity. A. Summary of thematic work conducted 12. Over the last 10 years, the mandate has produced 16 thematic reports, covering many international human rights law provisions relevant to cultural rights, including most aspects of article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 15 of the 4 5 Most of the submissions received for the present report are available on the webpage of the mandate and are referred to throughout the rest of the report by the name of the submitting State, organization or other stakeholder. See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/CulturalRights/Pages/10thAnniversary.aspx. In particular through the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities in 1992, and the work related to the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People, launched in 1994. 3