A/HRC/22/27 United Nations General Assembly Distr.: General 17 December 2012 Original: English Human Rights Council Twenty-second session Agenda items 2 and 3 Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development Rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Summary The present report is submitted pursuant to resolution 13/12 of the Human Rights Council. It covers activities undertaken by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner in 2012, a year that marked the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. The anniversary offered an important opportunity to examine the diverse ways in which the Declaration has been used and implemented in practice and to gain perspective on how it could be better used to protect minority rights. The activities summarized in the report were focused on bringing awareness to the Declaration and the implementation of its provisions at the national, regional and international levels in order to better protect the exercise by persons belonging to minorities of their rights. GE.12-18787