PROTECTING MINORITY RIGHTS – A Practical Guide to Developing Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Legislation been understood as falling outside the right to non-discrimination. However, as with any human right, these rights cannot be realized without effective protection from discrimination. Indeed, more broadly, the rights of minorities to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion or to use their own language can all be understood as specific manifestations and applications of the rights to equal protection of the law and to non-discrimination. The realization of the right to non-discrimination entails protection for groups not traditionally considered minorities. Nevertheless, as noted above, there is now a clear recognition that the complexity and richness of the human personality necessitates an intersectional approach to the realization of minority rights and indeed all rights. It is for this reason that Minority Rights Group International – an organization focused on securing the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and indigenous people – has noted that: “In order to reach the most excluded groups, we have to understand how discrimination intersects on different axes of identity – for example, gender, sexuality, age, race, religion and disability. These are not experienced independently of one another, but together compound the experience of discrimination in the lived reality of a particular individual.”7 It follows from this and similar observations that in situations in which antidiscrimination laws do not provide comprehensive protection, minorities, among others, will be denied effective protection and remedy. Beyond the need to realize the rights of minorities themselves, global attention to ensuring non-discrimination and equality for minorities is grounded in, among other things, the awareness that structural discrimination against minorities can give rise to humanity’s darkest forces, including war and genocide. It is also reflective of the long-standing but now increasingly urgent focus on addressing the social forces that underpin and drive patterns of discrimination. Thus, while the adoption and implementation of comprehensive anti-discrimination laws is not a sufficient condition for the realization of minority rights, it is a necessary – indeed essential – element of an effective system of protection. Impact of comprehensive anti-discrimination laws The enactment, enforcement and implementation of comprehensive anti-discrimination laws is essential if States are to address and eliminate all forms of discrimination and to ensure the enjoyment of minority rights. Since 2000, an increasing number of States – from South Africa to the Republic of Moldova and from the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – have adopted comprehensive anti-discrimination laws. In so doing, these States have brought their national laws into compliance with their international legal obligations. However, the adoption of such laws signifies much more than this. It indicates a recognition that the law should reflect shared values of dignity, inclusion and diversity, that it should provide effective protection from harm and that it is only by addressing discrimination that States can create more equal societies. The vindication of these laws is above all that they translate abstract commitments to equality into legally enforceable rights, equipping those exposed to discrimination and associated disadvantage with the tools to challenge such treatment and receive remedy. One case study demonstrates this remarkable transformation in practice: in 2016, a little more than two decades after its establishment, Unia – the federal equality body of Belgium – reported that it had received 5,619 reports of discrimination, leading it to open 1,907 case files covering discrimination on a range of grounds, including race, disability and religion or belief. It also published comprehensive assessments identifying significant inequalities in the Belgian education system, in particular as concerned social background, gender, disability or sexual orientation of pupils.8 There are no indications that Belgium has more or less discrimination than any other society; rather, the data demonstrate the operation of a system working to respond to and address the discrimination people feel that they have experienced in xxiv 7 Nicole Girard, “Reaching the most marginalized: an intersectional approach to minority rights”, Minority Rights Group International. Available at https://minorityrights.org/fifty/report/intersectional-approach. 8 See www.unia.be/en/publications-statistics/publications/unias-work-expressed-in-figures-for-2016.