Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities

The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (before 1999, known as the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities) was a think tank of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. It was wound up in late August 2006.

With the dissolution of the Commission on Human Rights and its replacement by the Human Rights Council in 2006, responsibility for the Sub-Commission passed from the former to the latter. On 30 June 2006 the Council resolved to extend the Sub-Commission's mandate on an exceptional one-year basis and subject to the Council's subsequent review. The Sub-Commission met for the final time in August 2006; among the recommendations it adopted at that session was one for the creation of a human rights consultative committee as a standing body to assist the Human Rights Council.

The Sub-Commission was first formed in 1947, under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Its primary mandate is described as:

Other functions and tasks could also be assigned to it by ECOSOC or the Commission on Human Rights.

It was composed of 26 human rights experts, each with an alternate and each elected for a term of four years, with half of the posts up for election every two years. Membership was selected from amongst the eligible candidates from United Nations member states in such a way as to result in roughly equal and proportional representation from each of the continents.

As of 2004, the breakdown of membership was:

The Sub-Commission had eight working groups to conduct studies on discriminatory practices and make recommendations to ensure that racial, national, religious and linguistic minorities were protected by law.

By the middle of the 1970s the Genocide Convention had not been ratified by all of the members of the security council and appeared to be moribund after 20 years of inaction. Members of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities decided to investigate the subject and over the next decade launched a number of initiatives. which included publication of the Ruhashyankiko report in 1978 and the Whitaker report in 1985.

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