PART THREE: PROTECTING MINORITY RIGHTS In addition to the guarantees provided under article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities provides that: • States shall protect the existence and identity (national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic) of minorities (art. 1). • Persons belonging to minorities have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination; they also have rights to participate effectively in cultural, religious, social, economic and public life; to participate effectively in decisions at the national and, where appropriate, regional level concerning the minority to which they belong or the regions in which they live; and to establish and maintain their own associations (art. 2). • These rights may be exercised individually and in community with other members of the group and without discrimination (art. 3). PART THREE • States shall take measures – including proactive measures – to ensure the full and effective exercise of rights by minorities and to create favourable conditions for the development and expression of culture, language, religion, tradition and customs (art. 4). Article 8 (3) of the Declaration provides that measures taken to further its aims shall not be considered prima facie contrary to the principle of equality. Indeed, the commentary to the Declaration sets out that minority protection is based on four requirements: protection of the existence of minorities; non-exclusion; nondiscrimination; and non-assimilation of the groups concerned.864 B. Who are minorities? The term “minorities”, refers to members of the four categories set out in the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities: national, ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. In its general comment No. 23 (1994), the Human Rights Committee sets out that “the persons designed to be protected” under article 27 “are those who belong to a group and who share in common a culture, a religion and/or a language”.865 There is no universally accepted definition of minorities. Indeed, an “absence of consistency in understanding who is a minority”, as the Special Rapporteur on minority issues notes, “is a recurring stumbling block to the full and effective realization of the human rights of minorities”.866 However, certain core principles are generally accepted. The first core principle is that “the existence of an ethnic, religious or linguistic minority in a given State party does not depend upon a decision by that State party but requires to be established by objective criteria”.867 Thus, the existence of a minority group is a matter of fact, not of law nor official policy or decision. A further core principle is the fact that minority definitions cannot be limited to citizens nor to permanent residents.868 The Human Rights Committee has held that minorities are to be understood as within a State as a whole and not within a particular province.869 The Working Group on Minorities to the Declaration has set out that the Declaration benefits from a scope as wide as that of article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its application extends to minorities regardless of citizenship.870 This approach 864 E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.5/2005/2, para. 23. 865 Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 23 (1994), para. 5.1. 866 Special Rapporteur on minority issues, “Concept of a minority: mandate definition”, OHCHR, 2021. Available at www.ohchr.org/EN/ Issues/Minorities/SRMinorities/Pages/ConceptMinority.aspx. 867 Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 23 (1994), para. 5.2. 868 Ibid., paras. 5.1–5.2. See also A/74/160, para. 59. 869 Human Rights Committee, Ballantyne et al. v. Canada, communications Nos. 359/1989 and 385/1989. 870 E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.5/2005/2, para. 9. 127