- The Committee insists on taking into account the right of minorities to participation, as instruments of international law relating to the right to participation provide for the adoption of legal and other measures including: - to ensure that persons belonging to minorities can take effective part in decisions that affect them or the region where they live; - to ensure the participation of persons belonging to minorities in cultural, religious, social, economic, and political life; - to ensure their full participation in the progress and the economic development of their country. The rights to participation are collective, and for them to be realized, they must be granted to groups. Two solutions are possible: the solution to integrate, which enables minorities to participate in public life and ensures their representation within the same State institutions, or the ‘autonomist’ solution, which enables minorities to participate at the margins of State institutions, in one of more facets of life of the State by forming a group in order to dialogue with the government, or an autonomy, which then enables minorities to come together under their own entity with its own self-governance authority. - Without any doubts, the recognition of the right of minorities to participate fully and effectively in the economic progress and in the development of their country, by involving them in the decision-making processes that concern the projects and programs that affect them, would be a remarkable advance in the field of human rights and could give minorities a true place in the world order and encourage them to positively exert their influence as citizens of the world. Paris, December 5 2010 Prof. Azzouz KERDOUN Member of the ESCR Committee

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