Statement by the President of the Human Rights Council to be delivered at the 11th session of the Forum on Minority Issues on 29th November 2018 Madam Chairperson, Distinguished delegates and participants, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a great pleasure for me to open this eleventh session of the Forum on Minority Issues convened on the theme “Statelessness: A Minority issue’’. At the outset, I would like to warmly welcome and congratulate Ms. Rita Izsak-Ndiaye for her appointment as Chairperson of the Forum and thank her for kindly accepting the important task of chairing this session. She is well known to many of you for her expertise and dedication to the promotion of the rights of minorities. Ms. Izsák-Ndiaye is the former UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues. At the age of 30, she was the youngest expert to be appointed to special procedures. She is currently a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). I am convinced that her wealth of experience and expertise will guide and inspire the work of this session of the Forum, as it intends to address, inter alia, the main challenges faced by persons belonging to minorities in the context of statelessness and to promote dialogue and cooperation in order to identify effective solutions. I would like to also welcome Dr. Fernand de Varennes, the Special Rapporteur on minority issues who is mandated by the Human Rights Council to guide the work of this important Forum and to prepare its annual sessions. Furthermore, I would like to warmly thank all the representatives from Member States, United Nations specialized agencies, human rights mechanisms and bodies, international and regional organizations, national human rights institutions, as well as representatives from non-governmental organizations, academics and experts present at the Forum today. The Forum on Minority Issues is a unique platform for promoting dialogue and cooperation on issues pertaining to national, ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, and aims to provide thematic contributions and expertise to the work of the Special Rapporteur on minority issues. 1