must and does play an important role in drawing international attention to acts of violence against any community, including minorities and in seeking to prevent and halt grave human rights violations wherever they exist. In its recent special sessions on the situations in Iraq, the Syrian Arab Republic or the Central African Republic, for instance, the Council has addressed situations of violence against minorities, including communal violence and sectarian tensions. Commissions of Inquiry and other investigations have been initiated via Council resolutions to uncover the nature and extent of human rights violations including those affecting minorities. They also provide a deeper understanding of the root causes of human rights violations, violence and conflict. While these activities often come after violence has broken out, it is my profound hope that collectively we may become better at strengthening measures to prevent violence as a primary objective of States and the international community alike. In this respect, I welcome and congratulate the work of the Special Procedures mandate–holders, including the Special Rapporteur on minority issues. As independent human rights experts, they are mandated to report, advise and provide recommendations on human rights issues from a thematic and country-specific perspective. Their substantive reports frequently address specific minority concerns and offer a timely and reliable source of information for the Human Rights Council and a solid basis for protecting minorities and effectively improving the situations of minority groups worldwide. Sometimes information contained in their reports and the evidence provided by civil society is an essential early warning to the international community that we must be better at listening and responding to. It is notable that minority rights issues are also among concerns frequently raised in the work of the Council’s Universal Periodic Review. This public peer review process is an opportunity for each State to discuss actions that they have undertaken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to fulfil their human rights obligations, including under existing international and regional standards and principles relevant to the protection of persons belonging to minorities. It is also in the area of prevention of violence and conflict that this Forum has an crucial role. Over the years since it was establishment in 2007, this body has conducted much essential work to promote minority rights as contained in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. All of that work across many issues,