PART THREE: PROTECTING MINORITY RIGHTS The current Special Rapporteur on minority issues has sought to re-establish or reinvigorate earlier understandings, whereby a minority refers to a group that is smaller in number than the majority population(s).877 A primary consideration in minority questions is the self-identification of the person concerned. There is no requirement under international law that a person self-identify as a single minority. Persons should be enabled to self-identify as a member of multiple ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities and to have these legally recognized. For example, as concerns ethnicity, in its guidance for States in conducting population censuses, the Economic Commission for Europe has stated: “ethnicity has necessarily a subjective dimension and some ethnic groups are very small”, meaning that information on ethnicity should be “based on the free self-declaration of a person” and “respondents should be free to indicate more than one ethnic affiliation or a combination of ethnic affiliations if they wish so”.878 In addition, aspects of identity are changeable and must be officially recognizable as such, provided changes are done on the basis of free and informed consent.879 Individual self-identification is a matter by right of individual self-determination.880 877 “One of the main objective criteria for determining whether a group is a minority in a State is a numerical one. A minority in the territory of a State means it is not the majority. Objectively, that means that an ethnic, religious or linguistic group makes up less than half the population of a country.” See Special Rapporteur on minority issues, “Concept of a minority: mandate definition”. The Special Rapporteur has explained this return to definitional matters as grounded in strengthening the human rights protection of minorities: “The absence of consistency in understanding who is a minority is a recurring stumbling block to the full and effective realization of the rights of minorities. Different United Nations entities may contradict one another because they consider different groups of persons as constituting a minority, and diverge from the practices of colleagues in other entities. States Members of the United Nations hesitate to engage on matters relating to minorities since they do not know who is a minority and what that entails. In some countries, there may be even the assumption that the absence of a ‘definition’ means it is left to each State to determine freely who is or is not a minority. In most of these situations, the uncertainty leads to restrictive approaches: in many situations, persons are deemed to be ‘undeserving’ because they are not ‘traditional’ minorities, not citizens or not sufficiently ‘dominated’. The end result is that some minorities are excluded because they are not the ‘right kind’ of minority according to different parties. … Instead of providing flexibility, openness and the possibility of progress, the absence of common points of reference as to what constitutes a minority has led to a curtailment of who can lay claim to minority protection.” See A/74/160, paras. 21–22. 878 Economic Commission for Europe, Conference of European Statisticians: Recommendations for the 2010 Censuses of Population and Housing (New York and Geneva, 2006), paras. 425–426. 879 In the case of Ciubotaru v. Moldova, Application No. 27138/04, Judgment, 27 April 2010, the European Court of Human Rights examined the refusal by the authorities of the Republic of Moldova to record the ethnic identity (“Romanian”) declared by the applicant, when dealing with his application to replace his Soviet identity card with a Moldovan identity card, on the ground that his parents were not recorded as “ethnic Romanians” on their birth and marriage certificates. The Court found the Republic of Moldova to be in violation of article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights, because the applicant could not gain effective access to his personal documents and have them changed to reflect his individual self-identification. 880 On individual self-determination in a human rights context see, for example, A/HRC/22/53; OHCHR, Living Free & Equal, pp. 47–48; and OHCHR and others, “Eliminating forced, coercive and otherwise involuntary sterilization: an interagency statement” (Geneva, WHO, 2014), p. 7. The term “individual self-determination” should not be confused with the right to self-determination enjoyed by peoples as set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 881 OHCHR, “UN human rights expert calls for recognition of rights of users of sign languages as minorities”, 22 September 2020. Available at www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26278&LangID=E. 882 A/75/211, para. 76 (b). See also Beirut Declaration and its 18 Commitments on Faith for Rights (notably, commitment II, which refers to theistic, non-theistic, atheistic or other believers, and commitment VI on the rights of all persons belonging to minorities). 883 See further United Nations Sustainable Development Group, Leaving No One Behind: A UNSDG Operational Guide for UN Country Teams – Interim Draft (2019). Available at https://unsdg.un.org/sites/default/files/Interim-Draft-Operational-Guide-on-LNOB-for-UNCTs. pdf. PART THREE Understandings of the rights of minorities continue to evolve. For example, the Special Rapporteur on minority issues has recently recalled that linguistic minorities include users of sign languages.881 On another front, the Special Rapporteur stated that, as concerns religious or belief minorities: “This category includes a wide range of religious, non-religious, non-theistic and other beliefs, such as unrecognized and non-traditional religions or beliefs, including animists, atheists, agnostics, humanists, ‘new religions’, etc.”882 Reflection on human rights-based understandings of the definition of minorities is particularly appropriate in the context of leaving no one behind.883 129