A/HRC/22/71 respect for international standards within informal and traditional justice systems by situating human rights learning within a local context.88 72. When developing programmes that introduce the concept of human rights by means of familiar traditional values, it is important that those values serve the goal of promoting and protecting human rights. As illustrated above, traditional values can be misapplied to justify discrimination or subjugation of minority or marginalized groups. Care must be taken to ensure that international human rights standards remain paramount when developing a programme of human rights education. The use of traditional values that may be more familiar to individuals and communities should be a tool for introducing and promoting the acceptability and implementation of international human rights standards; those traditional values must never, however, be presented as a substitute for international standards, given the generally subjective and unclear framing of values when compared with human rights. V. Conclusions and recommendations 73. Realizing the rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other international instruments has been a challenging and continuing process in which States from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds have to cooperate at a universal level. There is a growing understanding and reflection of universal human rights standards in the policies and activities of regional organizations, which have adopted universal mechanisms for the protection of human rights. Such organizations have established not only commissions but also courts, thus making it possible to consider reports from State parties as well as individual complaints, while still taking the distinctive features of their countries’ cultures, religions and traditions into account. 74. Increasing people’s awareness, acceptance and implementation of universal human rights norms and standards at the grass-roots level has been a particularly difficult process; a better understanding and the promotion of positive traditional values underpinning such universal norms and standards could have a useful role to play in it. 75. The international community has reached consensus that each and every person is entitled to all the rights and freedoms recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Under international law, all States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, have the responsibility to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. Dignity is inherent to the human person, and is inextricably related to equality and non-discrimination. Freedom is the sphere of the individual’s actions, beliefs and opinions, free from State interference. 76. States, and in some cases non-State actors, have a responsibility to take sustained and systematic action to modify or eliminate stereotypes and negative, harmful and discriminatory practices justified by traditional values, and are encouraged to identify progress in this regard when reporting to international human rights monitoring mechanisms. Individuals may also be encouraged, particularly 88 20 Ewa Wojkowska, “Doing Justice: How informal justice systems can contribute”, UNDP, December 2006, pp. 33-35.