She urged all states to rally around and endorse the framework, as it complements existing international standards of non-discrimination.
Regrettably, the High Commissioner’s call still stands unanswered in the Human Rights Council today. The HRC has not yet explicitly included caste – estimated to affect at least 260 million persons globally – in a single resolution text. Nor has it been dealt with as a separate, thematic topic on par with other aggravated forms of discrimination based on e.g. disability or sexual orientation. Only one country, Nepal, has officially endorsed the draft framework in its existing format. This is in spite of the many concerns expressed on this topic by UN Special Rapporteurs, UN Treaty Bodies and States over the past few years. Caste keeps coming up in thematic debates and reports as a root cause to grave, cross-cutting human rights violation, including in Universal Periodic Reviews, but no comprehensive action is taken by the HRC to address it.