A/HRC/40/71 5. The recommendations also recognize the important role the United Nations, civil society organizations, representatives of minorities and other stakeholders can have in preventing and combating statelessness. 6. The present recommendations are intended to be implemented in countries across the world in full respect of universal human rights standards. II. General considerations A. Panel discussions 7. The United Nations, its Member States, representatives of civil society and other stakeholders have recognized that statelessness is a human rights issue disproportionately affecting minorities around the world. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as of 2017, more than 75 per cent of the world’s known stateless populations belonged to minorities. 8. Although there has been some uncertainty in the past as to the main factors resulting in millions of individuals being or becoming stateless, it has become clearer in recent years that discriminatory practices, arbitrary nationality requirements and other underlying human rights issues are at the core of the causes of statelessness, particularly when minorities are disproportionally affected. The promotion and protection of the human rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities can therefore serve as an important and effective framework to address and combat the issue of statelessness. 9. Statelessness can also have a significant negative impact on a person’s ability to fully enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms and to have access to a remedy for human rights violations. Stateless people have difficulties accessing education, health-care services, employment, property rights and freedom of movement, among others. They often face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination both as minorities and as stateless people. With more than three quarters of the world’s stateless persons belonging to minorities, it is important to consider how human rights violations against stateless persons belonging to minorities can be addressed to avoid the denial or deprivation of nationality resulting in statelessness for millions of members of minorities. 10. The right to a nationality is furthermore a fundamental human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and many other international instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. 11. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and in particular its target 16.9, aiming to achieve “legal identity for all, including birth registration”, can be another useful framework for ensuring the right to a nationality for all without discrimination and with the commitment to leave no one behind. 12. The eleventh session of the Forum on Minority Issues was a unique opportunity to hear the voice of minorities affected by statelessness. The discussions evolved around four thematic panels. 13. During the first thematic panel, participants discussed and formulated recommendations with regard to addressing the root causes and consequences of statelessness and preventing statelessness through a human rights approach. They discussed the role of combating all forms of discrimination against minorities as both a root cause and a consequence of statelessness. 14. During the second panel, participants addressed statelessness arising from conflicts, forced population movements and migration affecting minorities and aimed to suggest solutions to the main challenges in that regard. The participants raised the issue of uprooting 4