A/73/205 minorities. On 26 and 27 April, he was a keynote speaker at the closing ceremony of the thirty-sixth annual course on human rights, organized by the Catalonian Institute of Human Rights in Barcelona, Spain. On 30 April and 1 May, he convened a regional expert consultation in Bangkok on statelessness and minority rights. 13. On 9 May, the Special Rapporteur addressed the International Muslim Communities Congress, held in Abu Dhabi, where he presented his mandate and tackled issues surrounding the rise of hate speech and intolerance of religious minorities around the world. On 10 May, he was a guest speaker at an event entitled “Arab human capital in Israel: organizing and activation”, held in Et Taiyiba, Israel. He addressed the topic of the human rights of minorities generally and the value of education and language more specifically. On 24 May, he was a speaker at the third global meeting of Global Action against Mass Atrocity Crimes, held in Kampala, where he discussed the issue of prevention and minorities. On 31 May, he participated as a speaker and panellist in Oslo at a conference marking the twentieth anniversary of the Oslo Recommendations regarding the Linguistic Rights of National Minorities, organized by the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Norwegian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights. 14. On 18 June, the Special Rapporteur gave opening remarks at a conference to mark the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, focusing on minority rights in conflict-ridden societies, organized by the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities and the Minority Network, in Oslo. He dealt with human rights and autonomy as approaches for maintaining peace and stability and effectively protecting minorities. On 25 June, he was a panellist at the first World Conference on “Religions, Creeds and Value Systems: Joining Forces to Enhance Equal Citizenship Rights”, organized in Geneva by the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue in collaboration with the International Catholic Migration Commission, the World Council of Churches, the World Council of Religious Leaders, Bridges to Common Ground and the European Center for Peace and Development. On 26 June, he attended an expert round -table discussion on citizenship stripping as a security measure, a long with some 40 other experts in The Hague, Netherlands, organized by the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, in collaboration with the Asser Institute, Open Society Foundations and Ashurst. He pointed out, among other things, that statelessness wa s, by and large, a minority issue. 15. On 3 July, the Special Rapporteur was a guest speaker at the First Nations Governance Forum, organized by the Australian National University in Canberra. He dealt mainly with United Nations standards on the protectio n of the human rights of minorities and how those were important elements in ensuring stable and inclusive societies around the world. On 4 July, he participated in a seminar organized by the College of Law of the Australian National University on the nature and extent of minority rights in international law and described his mandate. On 5 July, he met a group of indigenous graduate students at the Australian National University and exchanged views on the advancement of human rights and the contemporary challenges being faced in terms of their promotion and implementation. On 11 July, in Geneva, he addressed the participants in the fifty-sixth United Nations Graduate Study Programme, organized by the United Nations Information Service. The theme was “Human rights at a crossroads: where we stand in 2018”, given that 2018 marks the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He pointed to the historical evolution of human rights since the end of the Second World War, explaining why their development was far from complete, or even straightforward, in the current context of resistance — and even opposition — to the international human rights system. On 12 July, he gave a lecture as part of the summer human rights 18-12048 5/19