A/CONF.189/PC.1/7 page 7 have an impact on their culture and way of life.19 Constitutions throughout the world provide protection for minorities using a wide variety of terminology that captures the conceptual difficulty of distinguishing between the racial and the religious dimensions of the concept.20 18. Finally, as we shall see, aggravated discrimination does not concern minorities exclusively. Groups of people who differ in their religion or ethnic origin from the majority of the population or other groups can be the target of aggravated discrimination even though they may not satisfy all the criteria for the definition of a minority, either for objective reasons (for example, they are not linked by nationality to the State in whose territory they reside) or for subjective reasons (the group has little or no sense of solidarity or of preserving its specific characteristics). 19. The question, therefore, is whether this interconnection of religion and race is legally established in the universally applicable international instruments. B. Universal protection against aggravated discrimination 20. Two categories of instruments can be distinguished: those of a general nature dealing with the protection of human rights and those of a specific nature dealing with a particular category of rights to be protected. The type of instrument (convention, declaration) and its relevance to the problem concerning us are variable. However, none of these instruments envisages the hypothesis of aggravated discrimination by singling it out from other forms of discrimination for special legal treatment. Moreover - and this may be the reason why - none of the instruments studied claims to protect minorities as such. They are aimed only at the people belonging to minorities. However, this statement should be qualified. None of the instruments studied looks unfavourably on the intersection between race and religion. Some even make explicit reference to it. 1. General instruments (a) The Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 21. Unlike the League of Nations Covenant, the Charter of the United Nations affirms “respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all”. Identical wording is used: “…without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion” (see art. 1, para. 3; art. 13, para. 1 (b); art. 55 (c); and art. 76 (c)), 21 even though the Charter is not aimed especially at the protection of minorities. This approach is perfectly understandable insofar as the soughtafter objective of universality requires the assertion of principles intended for application everywhere, independently of the particular situation of a category of rights to be protected or particular problems in a given region of the world; it is the interpretation of a given principle that makes it possible to consider its application to a particular category of rights to be protected. 22. In this respect, the Charter’s contribution is important: (a) First of all, it established the principle of non-discrimination and equality, the fundamental legal basis for the protection of every group or minority, including the persons we are concerned with, the victims of aggravated discrimination;