Thank you madam chair and thank you to the organisers and Special Rapporteur Fernandes de Verness for the invitation. My presentation today is based on research, policy and activism I have undertaken in my home country Sri Lanka, which militarily ended a 30 year conflict in 2009. Sri Lanka has no war, nor peace. Conflict fault lines have changed from ethnicity to religion, the causes of conflict remain unaddressed, victims have been denied truth, justice and accountability and there has been minimal reconciliation. So how then can a lasting peace be ensured through minority protection in conflict prevention. For as long as minorities remain in the margins of state-nation building; excluded, neglected, framed as ‘outsiders’ ‘the other’ - grievances will develop or fester. Rather than be seen as integral to the nation state and to peace building if they are problematized, seen as the enemy, discriminated and oppressed conflict will be unavoidable. Minority groups, in many states are increasingly being ‘otherised,’ ‘discriminated,’ ‘denied,’ ‘weaponised,’ ‘securitised,’ and ‘dehumanised.’ This framing is rarely because segments of these group pose a real threat but more often due to identity politics, majoritarian nationalism, competition for resources etc. Indeed state decline, democratic deficits, break down of rule of law, structural inequalities are among the contributing factors of conflict, but when they take on an identity dimension and they specifically and differently target minority groups, then this specificity needs to be identified and dealt with. However, both at the national and international level we see a hesitance to fully recognise this and my focus today will be at the international level. The international human rights framework is limited in, identifying and holding states accountable when minorities are the targets of human rights violations that lead to conflict. I am not referring here to minority rights violations, but for instance when minorities are targeted for extra judicial killings, torture, rape, sexual violence in a systematic way, it can build grievances and lead to conflicts. This is not to say that relevant treaty bodies and Special Procedure mandate holders don’t raise these violations with states, but early identification, monitoring and reporting of the specific minority dimension and linking it to conflict prevention needs strengthening. Secondly, apart from the work of a few INGOs, there is no systematic monitoring and analysis at the international level of trends and patterns of violations that contribute to conflict and mass atrocities. More effort within the UN Human rights system in needed in connecting the dots between the different types of violations, for example between Article 18 and 27 of ICCPR; in identifying patterns between previous trends in minority violations and the current ones and in considering how these violations contribute to conflict. In leu of time let me conclude with my recommendations Together with the strengthening of the legal and normative framework for the protection of minority rights, international human rights mechanisms and bodies pay greater attention to the minority dimension of human rights violations.