A/80/186 together more than 790 participants from 96 countries, including representatives of States, United Nations mechanisms, bodies, specialized agencies, funds and programmes, intergovernmental organizations, regional organizations and entities in the field of human rights, national human rights institutions and other relevant national bodies, minority groups, non-governmental organizations and academic experts on minority issues. 26. The seventeenth session of the Forum was aimed at promoting the representation of minorities in society, which affects their effective participation in decision-making and cultural, religious, social, economic and public life, as laid out in the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. In March 2025, the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur (A/HRC/58/69) were presented to Human Rights Council at its fifty eighth session. III. Minority issues in the context of the United Nations reform process2 A. Context 27. The year 2025 is one of special significance for the protection of human rights in the United Nations. It is also a year in which needed reforms must be carried owing to changes in the international situation caused primarily by a series of unilateral decisions on the part of the United States – one of the pillars of the multilateral system, the depositary country of the Charter, 3 the host country of the Headquarters of the Organization and one of the permanent members of the Security Council – to withdraw from several international organizations and programmes of the United Nations family, including the Human Rights Council. 28. The research 4 conducted for the present report was initiated in the third quarter of 2024, before the major changes noted above had occurred. The purpose of the research was to explore how article 9 of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities had been implemented. In article 9 of the Declaration, the General Assembly indicates that “[t]he specialized agencies and other organizations of the United Nations system shall contribute to the full realization of the rights and principles set forth in the present Declaration, within their respective fields of competence”. The Special Rapporteur believed that it would be interesting to determine, more than 30 years after the adoption of the Declaration, what the specialized agencies, funds and programmes, the divisions of the Secretariat and the organizations of the United Nations system had done to implement that request from the Assembly. 29. That analysis was motivated in part by the statement that the Secretary -General delivered on 21 September 2022 at a high-level General Assembly event to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. In that __________________ 2 3 4 6/21 Major unforeseen changes occurred in the international community after the reform process known as the UN80 Initiative was launched. When the Special Rapporteur speaks of the “United Nations reform process”, that expression should not be understood as a reference to the UN80 Initiative, but rather to more fundamental reforms. See Article 111. The Special Rapporteur wishes to thank Manon Beury (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)), Elie Chirat (University of Geneva), Natacha Pambou-Orski (University of Geneva) and Shafferan Sonneveld (OHCHR) for their research assistance in the preparation of the present report. 25-11708