The United Nations Charter (Article 1) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 2) affirm the right to non-discrimination based on language while the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (Article 2) asserts that persons belonging to minorities have the right to “use their own language, in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination.” Yet linguistic minorities throughout the world continue to experience challenges to their language rights as well as inequitable access to other civil and human rights.
In this session, current Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Fernand de Varennes will discuss the intersection of language and minority rights, including implementational challenges and possibilities. Representatives of NGOs, Secretariat and UN agency staff, colleagues from Member States, scholars, and others interested in linguistic minority rights are invited to participate in an open dialogue with the Special Rapporteur.
Register here by November 27!
About the Special Rapporteur:
Professor Fernand de Varennes, a globally recognized expert on linguistic and human rights, has served as the Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues since 2017 Reporting to the Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur promotes the implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities and guides the work of the Forum on Minority Issues, among other responsibilities.
Programme:
- 8:45 – 9:00am Sign In
- 9:00 – 9:05am Introduction – Francis M. Hult, Chair, Committee on Language and Languages
- 9:05 – 9:35am Fernand de Varennes, Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues
- 9:35 – 9:55am Open Dialogue
- 9:55 – 10:00am Closing Remarks – Humphrey Tonkin, Vice-Chair, Committee on Language and Languages
_________________________________________________________________________________________
CoNGO Notes: The NGO Committee on Language and Languages is a Substantive Committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. For more information, please email the chair at fmhult@umbc.edu. Likewise, for more information on the NGO Committee on Education, Learning, and Literacy, please visit facebook.com/NGOCELLatUN. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, please visit un-ngocrip.net.
