© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004251564_013 chapter 12 The Declaration and Its Guidance A View from South Asia Joshua Castellino and Elvira Domínguez-Redondo 1 Introduction The tendency of grouping all of ‘Asia’ and ‘Oceania’ together often imbalances perspectives on global themes.1 This is the case with minority rights in a more pronounced manner than many others, where there is often concerted focus on sub-regions in Europe, while Asian issues remain superficially touched upon.2 Asia, containing 60 per cent of the world’s population,3 may be under- stood as comprising at least five distinct sub-regions.4 This chapter is focused on South Asia, which, for the purposes of this review, includes the States of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Legitimate questions could be asked as to whether Afghanistan is more logically grouped with other Central Asian States, with which it shares significant minority populations. We have resolved this dilemma for the pur- poses of this commentary by relying on how the States self-identify, and thus considerable emphasis has been placed on membership in the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (saarc).5 It needs to be highlighted 1 An attempt to mitigate this was the introduction, in September 2011, of a change of denomina- tion of the United Nations Asian Group by its current name ‘Asia and the Pacific Small Island Development States Group’ or ‘Asia-Pacific Group’, see press release from the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (sprep) ‘un recognises the Pacific with name change’, 2 September 2011, <www.sprep.org/General-News/un-recognises-the-pacific-with -name-change>, visited on 1 March 2014. On regional groups in the United Nations, see United Nations Handbook 2013–14 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, New Zealand, (2013) pp. 15–17. 2 See for instance Minority Rights Group International, State of the World’s Minorities 2007 (mrg, London, 2007), which dwelt as long on ‘Asia and Pacific’ as Europe. This has since been rectified in subsequent yearbooks. 3 See un Department of Economic and Social Affairs doc ST/ESA/STAT/SER.A/260, Population and Vital Statistics Report, Statistical Papers, Series A Vol. LXVI. Data available as of 1 January 2014, especially information by continent in page 4. For a country by country break down see pp. 5–9. 4 J. Castellino and E. Dominguez Redondo, Minority Rights in Asia: A Comparative Legal Analysis (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006) p. 28. 5 E. Sudhakar, saarc: Origins, Growth and Future (Gyan Publishers, New Delhi, 1994).