The Centre Internacional Escarré per a les Minories Ètniques i les Nacions (CIEMEN, Escarré International Center for Ethnic Minorities and Nations) addressed the assembly of the Human Rights Council to urge such international body to take measures for the approval of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights or, alternatively, refer the issue to the HRC Advisory Committee, so that linguistic rights "be listed as one of the issues to be dealt with urgently in the HRC agenda".

Verena Graf, CIEMEN's member and delegate in the UN, reminded the assembly that, according to UNESCO's recently published atlas of endangered languages, about 2,500 languages are on the verge of extinction. Graf stressed that language rights have status of their own within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and so they cannot be diluted among other various cultural rights. Language rights are, then, human rights, and should be accordingly dealt with in the Human Rights Council rather than UNESCO.

CIEMEN has participated in the HRC session as a member of EBLUL network. You can watch the address in English and also in French. The original text, written by Aureli Argemí, president of CIEMEN, can be read here.