A/HRC/39/51 the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, article 1 (1) of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111) and article 1 (1) of the Convention against Discrimination in Education. 8. Human rights instruments prohibit discrimination on several grounds. Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights prohibits discrimination on the following 10 grounds: race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. The same prohibited grounds are included in article 2 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The grounds enumerated in these provisions are not exhaustive — some grounds not explicitly mentioned have also been considered prohibited grounds in jurisprudence. 9. The general principle of equality and non-discrimination is a fundamental element of international human rights law and, in certain circumstances, it can require a State to take affirmative action in order to diminish or eliminate conditions that cause or help to perpetuate discrimination. The Human Rights Committee has clearly stated this obligation in its general comment No. 18 (1989) on non-discrimination (para. 10). The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights frequently refers to the duty to take affirmative action in its concluding observations. In its general comment No. 23 (2016) on the right to just and favourable conditions of work, for example, the Committee suggests that States parties should introduce quotas or other temporary special measures to enable women and other members of groups that have experienced discrimination to reach high-level posts and provide incentives for the private sector to do so (para. 61); general comment No. 20 explicitly states that, “in order to eliminate substantive discrimination, States parties may be, and in some cases are, under an obligation to adopt special measures to attenuate or suppress conditions that perpetuate discrimination” (para. 9). These internationally recognized principles serve as basis of and are reflected in the 2030 Agenda, as described below. B. Income inequality 10. When discussing inequality in the context of development, income inequality is often at the forefront of the discussions. It is well documented that income inequality is on the rise. According to some reports, 82 per cent of all wealth created in 2017 went to the top 1 per cent, while the bottom 50 per cent saw no increase at all. 2 The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among the high-income countries.3 Despite its overall wealth, the countries of the European Union still face high levels of income poverty. According to a Eurostat report, in 2015, 119 million people (or 23.8 per cent of the population of the European Union) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. 4 In other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), income inequality is at its highest level for the past half century. The average income of the richest 10 per cent of the population is about nine times that of the poorest 10 per cent across OECD. In OECD countries, traditionally income inequality was greatly reduced through redistribution (through taxes and unemployment and other benefits). However, the financial crisis and the recent years of slow economic recovery weakened the cushioning effect of taxes and benefits, accelerating the overall upwards trend in income inequality. 5 In emerging economies, levels of inequality are generally even higher than in OECD 2 3 4 5 Oxfam, “Reward work, not wealth”, p. 8. Available at https://d1tn3vj7xz9fdh.cloudfront.net/s3fspublic/file_attachments/bp-reward-work-not-wealth-220118-en.pdf. See World Income Inequality Database, www.wider.unu.edu/project/wiid-world-income-inequalitydatabase. Eurostat, “Sustainable development in the European Union: Monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an European Union context” (2017), p. 29. Available at http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/8461633/KS-04-17-780-EN-N.pdf. OECD, “In it together: Why less inequality benefits all”, p. 24. Available at www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2015-In-It-Together-Chapter1-Overview-Inequality.pdf. 5