A/HRC/52/38 prejudice by all possible means, such as educational measures and cooperation with groups willing to assist in counteracting prejudice and discrimination. 11 13. The emergence of the freedom of religion or belief mandate itself can be traced to the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief of 1981. The fact that it took almost two decades to draft the Declaration 12 speaks volumes about the unfortunate political and other contestations at play. 14. In 1962, the General Assembly was deeply disturbed by the manifestations of discrimination based on differences of race, colour and religion still in evidence throughout the world, and it requested the Commission on Human Rights to prepare draft declarations and conventions on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination and of religious intolerance. 13 By 1965, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was adopted by the General Assembly, and attention returned to religious intolerance. The Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief was finally adopted by the General Assembly on 25 November 1981, without a vote.14 15. In addition to the standards noted, a number of subsequent instruments illustrated specific dimensions of this freedom. They include the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities of 1992 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007. 16. Concern that a mechanism was required to ensure and follow up on the advancement of the objectives of the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief led the Commission on Human Rights to decide, in its resolution 1986/20, to appoint a Special Rapporteur on religious intolerance. In 1998, the then-mandate holder, Abdelfattah Amor, proposed a change to the title of the mandate, to embrace its wider scope of work and in recognition of the positive aspects of the responsibilities of the mandate,15 and the Commission on Human Rights, in its resolution 2000/33, decided to change the mandate title accordingly to Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. 17. The mandate is the sixth thematic special procedure mandate established by the United Nations, 16 which illustrates, on the one hand, the importance given to this human rights concern and, on the other, the scale of the challenge posed to the enjoyment of this freedom around the world. There have since been six mandate holders to date, including the current one. The Special Rapporteur emphasizes the continued importance of the foundational work undertaken by the former mandate holders, Angelo d’Almeida Ribeiro, Abdelfattah Amor, Asma Jahangir, Heiner Bielefeldt and Ahmed Shaheed. 18. The human right to freedom of religion or belief is perhaps the right that best exemplifies the emphasis in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action’s that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated. This right embodies the dual aspects of the obligation to both ensure that there is no discrimination or intolerance on the basis of religion or belief and to uphold freedom of religion or belief itself. The former implicates the enjoyment of all other human rights. The latter’s concerns are captured in Human Rights Council resolution 49/5, in which the Council emphasized two of the other rights, including freedom of expression, and condemned acts of violence targeting persons due to their religion or belief. The obligation to ensure that there is no discrimination suffered on the basis of religion or belief permeates all international human rights instruments. Article 2 of the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination 11 12 13 14 15 16 4 Ibid., p. 23. General Assembly resolution 1781 (XVII). See also https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/ga_36-55/ga_3655.html. General Assembly resolutions 1780 (XVII) and 1781 (XVII). See A/36/PV.73. The draft of the Declaration was previously adopted by the Commission on Human Rights, 10 March 1981, by a vote of 33 to none, with 5 abstentions; see E/1981/25, para. 347. E/CN.4/1998/6, paras. 104–105; and A/53/279, para. 93. See https://www.universal-rights.org/urg-policy-reports/history-of-the-united-nations-specialprocedures-mechanism-origins-evolution-and-reform/. GE.23-00741