A/HRC/58/54 identification (with the minority group and with society as a whole) rather than on a process of self-identification linked to inner developments (see paras. 47 and 48 above for this distinction). This is why, despite being a right for persons belonging to a minority, self-identification does, by virtue of this relational dimension, have a collective dimension; the collective dimension is the result of the combined exercise, in community, of the individual right to identity of persons belonging to minorities. The individual right to identity of persons belonging to minorities, as an additional right to the general right to identity, is itself shaped by the collective identity of the minority group to which a person belongs. This is how the legal conundrum pointed out in paragraph 39 above can be solved. However, article 1 of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities does not explicitly confer a right to self-identification to persons belonging to minorities. It actually only imposes on States the obligation to respect the existence and identity of minorities, and to “encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity”. This stipulation is needed because of a paradox as regards minority identity. 62. Minority identities, beyond the elements examined above (such as language, religion, culture, art, etc.), are almost always linked to a sense of marginalization and discrimination felt by persons belonging to minorities. 59 There is, in that respect, a paradox regarding minority identities as seen through the lens of article 1 of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. Discrimination in State legislation or policies towards a minority tends to strengthen the identification of the persons belonging to a minority with the minority group, as we shall examine in the coming paragraphs. 63. This can be explained by the type of identity-building that takes place among persons belonging to oppressed minorities – who, in the worst cases, fear for the very existence of the minority they belong to – which will develop a strong but antagonistic and exclusive identity, an identity constructed as resilience or resistance to the State’s treatment of the minority. The difference between resilient and resistant identity depends on the means used to defend the endangered identity. According to the information gathered from long qualitative interviews with a dozen persons belonging to minorities, resistance identity is not the result of a conscious choice by persons belonging to the minority, but a consequence of discrimination and oppression. By contrast, minorities whose rights are respected, protected and promoted will build an identity that will be less exclusive. In this latter case, minority identity for persons belonging to a minority group can be positively articulated with the national identity, especially through art and education, which should be conceived as spaces for sharing minority identity, both with members of the minority group and with society as a whole. Naturally, this implies that the national (State) identity also has an open perspective, leaving room to accommodate minority identities as part of the national identity (see para. 48 above). 64. In the view of the Special Rapporteur, by adopting the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, United Nations Member States have accepted that the definition of their own right to identity should be constrained to allow the positive articulation of multilayered identities for persons belonging to minorities to identify both as persons belonging to a minority and as citizens of the State. 60 59 60 14 Convention, the self-identification dimension of gender identity is therefore deliberately disregarded and strongly at odds with the United Nations concept of gender identity. These developments on minority identities are the result of inputs received following the call for inputs launched in preparation for the present report, as well as from interviews with persons belonging to minorities conducted during the seventeenth session of the Forum on Minority Issues, held in Geneva on 28 and 29 November 2024. The Special Rapporteur thanks Laure Bera Rutagengwa for her work on both information-gathering processes. In the same sense, the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, in its thematic commentary No. 4 on the scope of application of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, indicates that: “The right to free self-identification also extends to multiple affiliations. In fact, the Framework Convention implicitly acknowledges multiple affiliations by promoting the preservation of minority identities in parallel to successful and effective integration in broader public life. Persons belonging to national minorities should never be obliged to choose between preserving their minority identity or claiming the majority GE.25-00509