A/HRC/58/54 United Nations General Assembly Distr.: General 30 January 2025 Original: English Human Rights Council Fifty-eighth session 24 February–4 April 2025 Agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development The right to identity of persons belonging to minorities Report of the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Nicolas Levrat* Summary In addition to providing a summary of his activities in 2024, in the present report the Special Rapporteur on minority issues unpacks and examines the meaning of article 1 of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities as a way to explore whether the right to identity belongs to minorities directly, or only to persons belonging to minorities – or both. He does this by examining the issue of the legal personality of minorities In addition, the Special Rapporteur examines the functions of three levels of identities, namely, “national identity”, “minority (collective) identity” and “individual identity”, and three types of identities, namely “assigned identity”, “selfidentification” and “relational identity”, in order to illustrate the complexity of multilayered identities. He then explores references to identity and the right to identity in international law. He underscores that minority identity results from the combined exercise of the specific right to identity by persons belonging to minorities and the recognition and protection from the State as spelled out in article 1 of the Declaration. The Special Rapporteur asserts that by fully respecting the identity of persons belonging to minority groups, tensions between minority groups and dominant groups can be averted, while enabling society to flourish in its diversity. The Special Rapporteur concludes the report by offering recommendations to States and other stakeholders for recognizing and respecting the specific identity of persons belonging to a minority groups. * Agreement was reached to publish the present report after the standard publication date owing to circumstances beyond the submitter’s control. GE.25-00509 (E) 300125 300125