A/80/186 D. Analysis 63. In view of the foregoing, it is clear that we are not “dealing with outright inaction and negligence in the protection of minority rights”. 60 There are only very rare references, however, to the Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities and to article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in all United Nations activities. This leads to a lack of visibility for actions aimed at addressing minority issues. 64. It is clear, however, that there is much action concerning minorities not only in the field of human rights, but also with regard to development programmes or security issues. That action, unfortunately, is not visible and relevant enough, leading the Secretary-General and previous mandate holders to make blunt remarks in that regard. In preparing the present report, the Special Rapporteur found that this lack of visibility can be attributed to two distinct factors, both of which make it difficult for United Nations activities to be identified as being actions aimed at addressing minority issues. 65. First, minority issues are being included in larger frameworks or within a series of issues that are relevant to targeted groups, which leads to actions not being identified as targeting minorities specifically. Indeed, minorities are not mentioned at all in some cases, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or the Pact for the Future, because they are considered to be implicitly covered by the “no one left behind” pledge. That could be a plausible explanation for why minorities are not mentioned, except that many other vulnerable groups that could be covered by such a broad pledge are also specifically mentioned in these intergovernmentally negotiated documents. 61 The Special Rapporteur has identified two reasons for this unacceptable omission. The first is historical. Minority issues were a major topic during the League of Nations era. Accordingly, many countries consider minority issues to be mostly a European matter and therefore of little concern to non-European States. Second, States are reluctant to deal with minority issues within the framework of the United Nations because they consider those issues as being highly political at the national level, and therefore there is in no need to address them in multilateral forums. In that regard, the Special Rapporteur would like to remind all Member States that they recognized, by consensus, the specific need for protection of persons belonging to minorities in the Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. In article 1 of Declaration, they commit themselves to recognize the existence and the identity of persons belonging to minorities. As the Special Rapporteur noted in his most recent report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/58/54), recognition of the existence and identity of minorities is consubstantial to their enjoyment of human rights. By denying minority groups specific recognition in United Nations documents, or by mixing minority issues with other issues, such as racism, 62 persons with disabilities, 63 marginalized communities 64 and others, Member States and United Nations organizations are not living up to the commitment to specifically recognize minorities as such. This will need to change. 66. Second, most efforts dealing with minority issues target one category of minorities, not minorities in general. In the field of development, 65 the focus is mostly __________________ 60 61 62 63 64 65 18/21 See para. 29 above. See footnotes 10–17 above. See para. 50 above. Ibid. Ibid. For example, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UNCTAD, UNDP, UN -Women and World Bank Group. 25-11708