Guidelines to Assist National Minority Participation in the Electoral Process Page: 6 Equally, international law provides some important restrictions on the freedoms and rights enunciated above.13 These include Article 4 of the CERD which reads: “States Parties condemn all propaganda and all organizations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote racial hatred and discrimination in any form, and undertake to adopt immediate and positive measures designed to eradicate all incitement to, or acts of, such discrimination and, to this end, with due regard to the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the rights expressly set forth in article 5 of this Convention, inter alia: (a) shall declare an offence punishable by law all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, incitement to racial discrimination, as well as all acts of violence or incitement to such acts against any race or group of persons of another colour or ethnic origin, and also the provision of any assistance to racist activities, including the financing thereof; (b) shall declare illegal and prohibit organizations, and also organized and all other propaganda activities, which promote and incite racial discrimination, and shall recognize participation in such organizations or activities as an offence punishable by law; (c) shall not permit public authorities or public institutions, national or local, to promote or incite racial discrimination.” V. LUND RECOMMENDATION ON ELECTIONS: NO. 7 “Experience in Europe and elsewhere demonstrates the importance of the electoral process for facilitating the participation of minorities in the political sphere. States shall guarantee the right of persons belonging to national minorities to take part in the conduct of public affairs, including through the rights to vote and stand for office without discrimination.” A. CONTENT EXPLANATION States are required to guarantee the right of persons belonging to national minorities to take part in public life. That guarantee is best established by including the right in the constitution. The constitution should entrench14 the right. It should also specify the conditions under which the legislature may restrict those rights. For example, the International Covenant on Civil and Political 13 14 Aside from the permissible restrictions on the freedoms and rights enunciated above, it is important to recall that there are also specific prohibitions which may be relevant, such as Article 20 of the ICCPR (prohibiting "propaganda for war" and "any advocacy of national, racial and religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence") and Article 6(2) of the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (requiring States to take measures to protect persons against discrimination, hostility or violence). There are different formulas for the entrenchment of constitutionally protected rights: see for example the incorporation of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man into the French Constitution by the Preamble to that Constitution; the Basic Rights in articles 1 to 19 of the German Basic Law; Amendments I to X, XIII to XV, XIX, XXIV and XXVI of the American Constitution,; the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which forms Part I of the Canadian Constitution Act; the National Goals and Directive Principles and Basic Social Obligations in the Papua New Guinean Constitution; and the Fundamental Rights in Part III of the Indian Constitution; Luxembourgers and Their Rights, in Chapter II of the Luxembourg Constitution; the Principi Fundamentali in Articles 1 to 11 of the Italian Constitution; the Fundamental Rights in Chapter 1 of the Dutch Constitution; Articles 40-44 of the Irish Constitution; Chapter 2 of the Swedish Instrument of Government; Part I of the Spanish Constitution; Article 8 and Chapter XII of the Hungarian Constitution; etc.