4 PROMOTING AND PROTECTING MINORITY RIGHTS While many argued that issues related to minorities would be best addressed through a combination of respect for individual human rights and the growing attention being paid to the right of colonial territories to self-determination, the United Nations did address minority issues in a number of specific cases. For example, the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide prohibits the destruction of “a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”. In 1947, the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities was created as a sub-body of the Commission on Human Rights and an influential study on that issue prepared for the Sub-Commission by Special Rapporteur Francesco Capotorti was published in 1979.4 In the 1960s, three important treaties were adopted that also addressed minority rights. In 1960, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted the Convention against Discrimination in Education, which recognized the right of minority group members to carry out their own educational activities, including establishing their own schools and teaching their own language. In 1965, the United Nations adopted the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which prohibits any distinction “based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin”. In 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights included in article 27 a specific provision concerned with minorities, a principal legal tool to advance minority rights. The Convention and the Covenant are discussed more fully in chapter V. While these developments were important, advancing the protection of minority rights received more attention as the cold war ended. The importance of minority rights and their contribution to the stability of States was increasingly recognized in the work of international institutions, including in Central and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union. In Europe, an important breakthrough came in 1990, when a review meeting of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (now the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), see chap. XIII) adopted a declaration on human rights, democracy, the rule of law and minority rights. This so-called Copenhagen Document commits the (now) 56 participating States of OSCE to a wide range of minority rights. Although the Copenhagen Document is a political declaration, its impact has been significant and it helped to pave the way for the legally binding Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, adopted by the Council of Europe in 1994. These and other initiatives of the Council of Europe and OSCE are discussed in chapters XII and XIII respectively. At the United Nations, a declaration on minority rights was under discussion for over a decade before the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (Minorities Declaration) in 1992 (see annex I). The Minorities Declaration contains progressive language, including as regards minority participation in the political and economic life of the State. In addition, the preamble recognizes that protecting minority rights will “contribute to the political and social stability of States in which they live” and, in turn, “contribute to the strengthening of friendship and cooperation among peoples and States”. Among its more noteworthy substantive provisions are: Article 1 1. States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity. [...] Study on the Rights of Persons Belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, reprinted as Human Rights Study Series No. 5 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.91.XIV.2). 4