A/HRC/4/37 page 10 including those resulting from “apartheid, all forms of racial discrimination, [...] and from the refusal to recognize the right of peoples to self-determination and the right of every people to exercise full sovereignty over its wealth and natural resources”. The reiteration “that all human rights and fundamental freedoms are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated and should be promoted and implemented in a fair and equitable manner, without prejudice to the implementation of each of those rights and freedoms” has further strengthened the concept that regardless of the immediate objectives in the minds of defenders their activities have an accumulative impact on all human rights. The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders refers to “all human rights and fundamental freedoms” throughout the text. The protection accorded to defenders by the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders is, therefore, not in any way dependent on whether the focus of the work of the defender(s) in question is on civil and political rights or ESCR. 28. The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders entrusts States with the prime responsibility to adopt such steps to create political as well as social and economic conditions as may be necessary for the enjoyment of “rights and freedoms in practice” (art. 2). Article 8 provides for the right to draw attention to any aspect of the work of governmental bodies “that may hinder or impede the promotion, protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms” and confides to civil society a responsibility for promoting the right of everyone to “a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights instruments can be fully realized” (art. 18). State policies that undermine social rights and result in social conflict, or those that deprive the population of their economic rights, are a contravention of the obligation to create the social and economic conditions referred to in article 2. Activities of defenders to draw attention to the failure of the State in this respect are within the scope of protection provided by the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. 29. Social action for the realization of rights is increasingly manifested through collective and public action. As described later in the report, this form of protest or resistance to violations has become most vulnerable to obstruction and repression. Collective action is protected by article 12 of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, which recognizes the right to participate, individually or in association with others, in “peaceful activities against violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms” and entitles those “reacting against or opposing” actions that affect the enjoyment of human rights to effective protection under national law. Read together with article 5, recalling the right to freedom of assembly, and article 6 providing for freedom of information and its dissemination, peaceful collective action is a legitimate means of drawing public attention to matters concerning human rights. 30. This form of public action, when taken in connection with ESCR, is also a means of promoting awareness of these rights. Article 14.1 of the Declaration on Human Rights stresses the responsibility of the State to take all “appropriate measures to promote the understanding by all persons under its jurisdiction of their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights” (art. 14.1). The State is, therefore, obliged to encourage initiatives taken by all interested actors to promote this understanding through means recognized in the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.