A/HRC/58/54 C. Understanding multilayered identities 45. Identity is not a legal issue per se, even though it is sometimes found in international legal documents (quite rarely though), with references to “national identity”, 24 collective identity25 or individual identity.26 It thus appears that all three levels of identity about which this report is concerned represent relevant identity issues in international law (see sect. III.D below). However, if individual identity clearly refers to an individual right, collective identities may be more complex to define, as collectivities are composed of individuals and should, in the logic of an international order based on respect for human rights, exert such right – provided that they can have rights (see para. 41 above) – for the benefit of human beings, the only natural holders of rights. 27 In order to better understand these different multilayered identities, we shall briefly investigate the identities’ functions, as well as their emergence and evolution. 46. The functions of identity are both to singularize the bearer and to allow this person to articulate a dynamic of change with the permanence of remaining the same being. 28 Identity therefore does not mainly refer to some innate quality of beings, but more to a constructed perception – by the bearer of identity and by others – built through processes of identification and differentiation. This dual function is relevant for both individual and collective identities. Therefore, references to collective identity as a set of values and elements immutably linked to past characteristics of a social group (such as the nation, as pictured in nationalist discourse) or as displayed today in what is called “identity politics” 29 constitute gross attempts at instrumentalizing identity to build closed and exclusive social groups – a construct at odds with both the concept of identity itself and the current reality of a globalized and interlinked world. 47. In addition to the recognition of three levels of identity (see para. 44 above), the present report will also investigate three types of identities: assigned identity, self-identification and relational identity. Assigned identity refers, for example, to the elements of an individual’s identity which appear in identity documents or on a birth certificate; it is assigned by an external authority. It may also be the result of social assignation of an individual to a given social group, either through social practices contrary to human rights principles, as is the case for Dalits in South Asia, or through legal or institutional provisions assigning individuals to an ethnic, linguistic or religious community as regards the exercise of some specific rights. Self-identification refers to “each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience”.30 Self-identification is more apparent when the chosen or perceived identity is at odds with the assigned identity,31 but each and every 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 8 Treaty on European Union (after 2007 revision), art. 4 (2). Article 1 of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. See also articles 1 and 5 of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and article 4 of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Article 8 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. From the wording of article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a majority of legal doctrine considers human rights not to be conferred by any legal system, but to be “natural rights” inherent to human nature. See Tom Angier, Iain T. Benson and Mark D. Retter, eds., The Cambridge Handbook of Natural Law and Human Rights (Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Cambridge University Press, 2022). See Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1989). To illustrate this second function, which may seem cryptic, it is what allows me to consider I was myself when 6 years old and still am myself at past 60. Even though I am obviously not the same (physically, intellectually, etc.), I am still the same person. See Francis Fukuyama, Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition (London, Profile Books, 2018); or Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland, “Identity politics and populism in Europe”, Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 23, No. 1 (May 2020), pp. 421–439. A/73/152, para. 2. A/73/152, para. 2. This is sometimes dramatically true as regards gender identity, leading to discrimination and violence against persons whose self-determined gender identity does not correspond to the identity assigned at birth. As the Independent Expert on protection against violence GE.25-00509