A/77/246 40. Subsequent treaties, 11 including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women of 1979, continue the process of acceptance that, while the holders of rights in international law are individuals, specific groups may need distinct and focused attention to ensure that the human rights obligations are clearly formulated and understood. In addition to their inclusion in the two general Covenants, children (with their own treaty in 1989), migrant workers and their families (1990) and persons with disabilities (2006) appear as groups worthy of such attention. Indigenous children or children of indigenous origin first appear in a United Nations treaty in the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989. 41. There is no treaty specifically on the human rights of minorities, as there are for groups such as women, children, refugees, migrants, persons with disabilities and others, despite the fact that minorities are often among the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized groups. 42. There have been non-binding General Assembly declarations that have gone further, by focusing on the rights of vulnerable groups earlier, and in some cases clearly overcame the collective rights’ taboo by acknowledging, for example, group rights for indigenous peoples. These include the Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1959 and continued with, among others, the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples of 1960 (which recognized the collective right of self-determination of peoples, if not yet indigenous peoples), the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women of 1967, the Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons of 1975 and, more recently and of relevance, the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities of 1992, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007, the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants of 2016 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas of 2018. 43. Institutionally, the United Nations embraced the need to focus on specific groups and their human rights by designating specific days, weeks, years and decades as occasions to mark events or topics in order to promote the objectives of the Organization, including human rights. Decades or years which have sought the promotion of the human rights of particularly vulnerable or marginalized groups have included the following topics: combating racism and racial discrimination (3 decades and 2 years); women (a decade and a year); disabled persons (a decade and a year); indigenous peoples (3 decades and a year); people of African descent (a decade and a year); refugees (a year); children (2 years); older persons (a year); the struggle against slavery and its abolition (a year). There are officially recognized days and weeks in the areas of women and girls, the elimination of racial discrimination, remembrance of the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, reflection on the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, solidarity with the peoples of non-selfgoverning territories, child labour, albinism awareness, the world’s indigenous peoples, victims of acts of violence based on religion or belief, remembrance of the slave trade and its abolition, people of African descent, older persons, the Palestinian people, persons with disabilities and migrants. 44. The human rights architecture and efforts of the United Nations are no longer limited to general individual rights. The trend has been to increasingly acknowledge that additional attention and elaboration are needed for groups facing heightened risks of human rights violations. Yet one group among those most at risk is striki ngly absent, and hence invisible: minorities. __________________ 11 12/21 A large number of the treaties of the International Labour Organization can be said to refer to human rights standards. Among the most relevant is the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169). 22-11516