A/HRC/28/63 50. Where relevant, discussions are held on how human rights defenders perceive the effectiveness of the regional mechanisms of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and of the European Union Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders and the guidelines issued by a number of other countries. 51. Part of the discussion focuses on national legislation. This helps the Special Rapporteur understand the best ways of providing States with technical cooperation and enabling them to develop specific national legislation to ensure better protection for the work of human rights defenders. 52. Such regional consultations will provide material for the country visits that the Special Rapporteur is currently preparing. The outcome of these regional consultations will inform the next report that the Special Rapporteur will submit to the General Assembly in 2015, which should promote reflection among Member States on the future direction of the mandate. The report will contain a series of recommendations intended for all the stakeholders, aiming at ensuring a faster, more personal and more effective response to the protection-related needs of human rights defenders throughout the world. 53. In addition to consultations with human rights defenders, the Special Rapporteur will, with a view to making a more detailed analysis, continue to schedule meetings with State representatives when they are in Geneva or in other countries to participate in discussions, round tables or lectures. The aim of such meetings is, first, to hear their comments and points of view on how trends are developing, the effectiveness of protection mechanisms and the impact of national laws on the protection of human rights defenders. Such meetings will also make it possible to discuss with State representatives, as indicated by Council resolution 25/18, the fact that in some instances, national security and counterterrorism legislation and other measures, such as laws regulating civil society organizations, have been misused to target human rights defenders or have hindered their work and endangered their safety in a manner contrary to international law. There will also be room to discuss the use of legislation to hinder or limit unduly the ability of human rights defenders to conduct their work. This is one of the themes on which the Special Rapporteur will be working in the near future. B. Identification of the threats to which human rights defenders are most exposed, with a view to providing for more effective protection 54. During his first consultations in Geneva and Brussels and the bilateral discussions that he held with representatives of regional networks of human rights defenders, the Special Rapporteur was struck by the repeated statements drawing his attention to the groups that were most exposed: those working on economic, social and cultural rights and minority rights; environmental defenders; defenders of LGBTI rights; women defenders and those who work for women’s rights; defenders who work in the area of business and human rights; those who work in an area exposed to internal conflict or a national disaster; defenders living in isolated regions; and those working on past abuses, such as the families of victims of enforced disappearance. 55. This is a central feature of the kind of communications received by the mandate holders on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and on the situation of human rights defenders and also by other mandate holders, such as the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances or the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. GE.14-25280 9