164 PROMOTING AND PROTECTING MINORITY RIGHTS person who did not want to be part of the minority concerned and therefore did not want to exercise her or his rights. ARTICLE 4 4.1 States shall take measures where required to ensure that persons belonging to minorities may exercise fully and effectively their human rights and fundamental freedoms without any discrimination and in full equality before the law. 55. Article 4 sets out the State measures that should be taken in order to achieve the purpose of the Declaration and is its most important part, together with article  2, which sets out the rights. While States are generally obliged under international law to ensure that all members of society may exercise their human rights, States must give particular attention to the human rights situation of persons belonging to minorities because of the special problems they confront. They are often in a vulnerable position and have, in the past, often been subjected to discrimination. In order to ensure equality in fact, it may under some circumstances be necessary for the State to take transitional affirmative action, as provided for in article 2.2 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which is applicable to ethnic as well as racial minorities, provided these measures do not disproportionately affect the rights of others. 4.2 States shall take measures to create favourable conditions to enable persons belonging to minorities to express their characteristics and to develop their culture, language, religion, traditions and customs, except where specific practices are in violation of national law and contrary to international standards. 56. This paragraph of article  4 calls for more than mere tolerance of the manifestation of different cultures within a State. The creation of favourable conditions requires active measures by the State. The nature of those measures depends on the situation of the minority concerned, but should be guided by the purpose set forth in article 4.2, which is twofold. On the one hand, individual members of the minority shall be enabled to express the traditional characteristics of the group, which may include a right to use their traditional attire and to make their living in their own cultural ways. On the other hand, they shall be enabled, in community with other persons belonging to the group, to develop their culture, language and traditions. These measures may require economic resources from the State. In the same way as the State provides funding for the development of the culture and language of the majority, it shall provide resources for similar activities of the minority. 57. The words “except where specific practices are in violation of national law and contrary to international standards” require some comment. The meaning of the words “contrary to international standards” is simple enough. In particular, it is intended that the practices must not be contrary to international human rights standards. This, however, should apply to practices of both majorities and minorities. Cultural or religious practices which violate human rights law should be outlawed for everyone, not only for minorities. The qualification contained in the final words of article 4.2 is therefore only a specific application of a universal principle applicable to everyone. 58. The first part of the phrase “in violation of national law” raises somewhat more difficult questions. It is clear that the State is not free to adopt whatever prohibitions against minorities’ cultural practices that it wants. If that were the case, the Declaration, and article 4.2 in particular, would be nearly empty of content. What is intended, however, is to respect the margin of appreciation which any State must have regarding which practices it wants to prohibit, taking