A/57/292 Human Rights, David Weissbrodt (E/CN.4/Sub.2/ 2001/20 and Add.1). 13. The primary reference document for the mandate on the human rights of migrants is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, followed by the principal international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. 14. All these conventions and the Universal Declaration contain clauses concerning nondiscrimination in the application of the rights they set forth. Article 2 of the Universal Declaration provides that everyone is entitled to the rights and freedoms set forth in the Declaration “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”. The purpose of the provisions of the Declaration and the international instruments is to protect, without distinction, every person without exception within the jurisdiction of a State. The opinions and decisions of the human rights treaty monitoring bodies throw light on the extent to which the rights in these treaties are applied to aliens in the territory of each State party (for an exhaustive study, see document E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/20 and Add.1). 15. The Special Rapporteur has taken particular note of General Comment 15 of the Human Rights Committee, which states, inter alia, that aliens have an inherent right to life and must not be subjected to torture, to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or to slavery. They have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and shall not be subjected to retrospective penal legislation. They are entitled to recognition before the law. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has adopted opinions along the same lines. She noted, for example, that article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and article 3 of the Convention against Discrimination in Education both state that the principle of non-discrimination extends to all persons of school age residing in the territory of a State party, including non-nationals, and irrespective of their legal status (see E/C.12/1999/10, para. 34). 16. The Special Rapporteur has also drawn on the opinions of working groups and other special rapporteurs in determining cases of violations of the specific rights with which they are concerned. For example, she has drawn on the opinion of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concerning the detention of unaccompanied minors (see E/CN.4/1999/63/Add.3). She has also taken joint action with the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions on cases involving the death penalty in which the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963 have not been observed. D. Methods of work 17. Since her appointment, the Special Rapporteur has established various types of communication with Governments, governmental and non-governmental organizations and migrants themselves. She has undertaken four missions in her capacity as Special Rapporteur and has participated in numerous international events, which are described in the chapter on her activities. Type of communications received by the Special Rapporteur 18. The Special Rapporteur receives a large number of communications containing information on alleged violations of the human rights of individuals or groups that are not nationals of the country in which they live. While the main sources of this type of communication are non-governmental organizations, information is also received directly from migrants, from intergovernmental organizations, from other United Nations human rights bodies and sometimes even from Governments. The Special Rapporteur has demonstrated her willingness to respond jointly with other subsidiary bodies of the Commission. 19. In order to facilitate the communication of allegations of violations of the human rights of migrants, the Special Rapporteur has prepared a questionnaire clearly setting out the information required to process a complaint under her mandate. This questionnaire is available on the Web site of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/7/b/ mmig.htm). 7