The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. [...] The adoption of such legislation is also a necessary element in the protection of minority rights, given that the prohibition of all forms of discrimination and the realization of equality lie at the centre of international law on the protection of minorities. [...] Born out of the horrors of the Holocaust and the atrocities of the Second World War, which witnessed the extermination of “millions of Jews, hundreds of thousands of Roma and Sinti people, people with disabilities, homosexuals, prisoners of war, political dissidents and members of Resistance networks”,3 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights places the rights to equality and non- discrimination. [...] Both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights prohibit discrimination in the enjoyment of all of the rights that they guarantee, while the former also provides a free-standing, autonomous right to non-discrimination and the right of all persons to equal recognition before the law, and equal protection and benefi. [...] Speaking at the forty-third session of the Human Rights Council, the Government of Austria – the sponsor of the Human Rights Council minorities mandate – placed the right to non-discrimination at the centre of the protection of minorities.
- Pages
- 235
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- Switzerland
