A/HCR/41/44 49. Given the salience and importance of migration issues in our time and especially in the context of the serious negative human rights implications of the laws and practices that criminalize or suppress the rendering of humanitarian assistance (i.e. the expression of human rights-based international solidarity) to irregular migrants and refugees, it is imperative that States and other stakeholders redouble their efforts to address much more effectively the issues and difficulties identified in the present report. The Human Rights Council is very well positioned to facilitate that process. 50. In the light of the discussion and analysis set out in the present report, the Independent Expert makes the following recommendations: (a) All States should take all the necessary individual and joint steps to end the criminalization and suppression of those who render humanitarian assistance and who thus show solidarity, to irregular migrant and refugees. In that context, the example that France has set is worthy of emulation; (b) To that end, all States that have enacted, or will enact, laws to combat human smuggling should ensure that such legislation contains humanitarian exemption clauses that make it as clear as possible that individuals and groups that render humanitarian assistance to migrants are not to be criminalized or suppressed by such laws; (c) All regional organizations should ensure that their legal regimes and practices do not lead to the criminalization or suppression of the expression of solidarity to migrants by humanitarian actors. In that regard, European Union Directive 2002/90/EC defining the facilitation of unauthorized entry, transit and residence (and other relevant European Union legislation) should be amended to make its currently optional humanitarian clause mandatory for all its parties; (d) States parties to the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air should consider adopting and ratifying an amendment protocol, eliminating the discretion that the Protocol affords States to define human smuggling and create anti-human smuggling legislation within their domestic legal orders. That is to remedy the current tendency on the part of all too many States to adopt and implement overbroad provisions that criminalize both organized criminals and humanitarian actors in a similar manner. In that connection, the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R v. Appulonappa should serve as a positive example; (e) All States should rededicate themselves to their treaty obligations to rescue and facilitate the rescue of all persons in distress at sea, including irregular migrants and refugees, as a failure to do so is a serious breach of international law; (f) States should take steps to clarify that the international legal obligation to rescue migrants in distress at sea includes an existing and inherently corresponding obligation to allow rescued migrants and refugees to disembark on the land territories of any of the coastal States in the relevant area; (g) States should consider instituting or at least explicating a positive obligation to rescue migrants in distress on their land territories, and not criminalize or suppress humanitarian actors who make an effort to do so. The Human Rights Council could play a facilitative role in ensuring that this change is made; (h) States should take steps to discourage and sanction elements within their various civil society sectors that attempt to suppress those who show solidarity to migrants. 16