A/HRC/22/49/Add.1 in Kotor Varos (Republika Srpska), and Serb returnees in the villages of Ortijes and Laksevine near Mostar (the Federation). She consulted Roma communities in Kakanj, near Sarajevo, and Banja Luka. She sought the views of young people, including in Srebrenica, to hear their perspectives and learn about youth initiatives to build bridges between communities. II. Methodology 7. The Independent Expert‘s evaluation is based on the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities and other relevant international standards, from which she identifies four broad areas of global concern: (a) the protection of a minority‘s survival, by combating violence against them and preventing genocide; (b) the protection and promotion of the cultural identity of minority groups and their right to enjoy their collective identity and to reject forced assimilation; (c) the guarantee of the rights to non-discrimination and equality, including the ending of structural or systemic discrimination and the promotion of affirmative action when required; and (d) the right to effective participation of minorities in public life and decisions that affect them. 8. The Independent Expert focuses her work on national, ethnic, religious and linguistic groups whose generally non-dominant, disadvantaged positions within society require measures to allow them to exercise all their rights, including minority rights, to the fullest. She notes that the existence of minorities is not for the State alone to decide or limited only to those officially recognized minorities, but should be based on objective and subjective criteria and the principle of self-identification. III. Non-discrimination and equality—legal, political and institutional framework 9. The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is contained in annex 4 of the Dayton Agreement, which ended the 1992-1995 war. The 1992 Declaration on Minorities is explicitly mentioned in the preamble, which provides an important constitutional recognition of the rights of minorities. The right to non-discrimination is provided for under article 2 of the Constitution, which prohibits discrimination on a wide range of grounds, including association with a national minority. The separate constitutions of the Federation and the Republika Srpska also guarantee the protection of minorities, equality and freedom of religion. 10. The category of ―others‖, which captures population groups who do not identify as belonging to constituent peoples, is broad and ambiguous and remains problematic, open to interpretation and possible misuse. While including 17 recognized national minorities, it also implicitly includes those belonging to other national, ethnic, religious and linguistic groups, those of mixed ethnicity who do not identify as belonging to one ethnic group, and those who identify as ―Bosnian‖. Cases have been reported of individuals falsely claiming ―others‖ status to gain access to reserved seats. 11. International human rights instruments to which Bosnia and Herzegovina is a party take precedent over domestic law; several of those instruments are listed in the Constitution, including the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the 1994 Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a party to United Nations human rights instruments relevant to minority issues, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International 5