A/HRC/28/81 from securing the advancement of disadvantaged groups. Do racial preferences adopted for the purpose of achieving diversity run afoul of the limitations of article 1, section 4, because they are not taken for the “sole purpose” of securing the advancement of disadvantaged groups? The Committee’s General Recommendation does not address this point, but the Committee’s practice does not suggest that special measures are problematic because they serve this additional purpose. This may be an example of the Committee’s interpretation of the Convention as a “living instrument.” As measures rarely have a single purpose, a literal approach to the “sole purpose” criterion is therefore unrealistic. 41. Article 1, section 4 also provides that special measures must be adopted for the purpose of securing “adequate advancement” for disadvantaged groups. The General Recommendation indicates that this term refers to “goal directed programmes which have the objective of alleviating and remedying disparities in the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms affecting particular groups and individuals, protecting them from discrimination.” These include “persistent or structural disparities and de facto inequalities were resulting from” historical circumstances. As there is a danger that communities themselves may not agree that special measures are necessary to secure their advancement, the General Recommendation provides that special measures should be designed and implemented on the basis of prior consultation with affected communities and the active participation of such communities. Special measures should not be imposed on disadvantaged groups against their wishes. He also noted also that Recommendation requires consultation with “affected communities,” not just the beneficiaries of the special measures, representatives of races or ethnicities that would not be benefited by the special measure. 42. Article 1, section 4 imposes two additional conditions for the validity of special measures: they must be temporary and not lead to the maintenance of separate rights for different racial groups. This is in contrast to article 2(2) which provides that special measures “shall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved.” Article 1(4) imposes two separate requirements – the measures must not maintain separate rights for different racial groups and they must be temporary; article 2(2) imposes one requirement – the wording indicates that measures may establish separate rights for different racial groups as long as they are temporary. The General Recommendation does not discuss the difference in language. In discussing article 1(4), the Recommendation interprets it to impose two separate requirements (that the measures not establish separate rights for different racial groups and that they be temporary). In discussing article 2(2), the Recommendation says that the limitations it imposes are “in essence the same” as those imposed by article 1(4). The General Recommendation does go on to say, however, that the obligation not to maintain special rights for different racial groups in “narrowly drawn” insofar as it refers only to “racial” groups, and thus and calls to mind the practice of Apartheid in South Africa. 43. The General Recommendation draws an important distinction between special measures, which must be temporary, and the permanent rights to which certain minorities might be entitled. For example, minorities have the right to enjoy their own culture, profess and practice their own religion and use their own language, and indigenous peoples have the right to use land traditionally occupied by them. Similarly, women have rights to nonidentical treatment based on biological differences, such as maternity leave. These permanent rights should be distinguished from special measures, which are to be used only temporarily. The Recommendation also makes clear that these permanent rights recognized by international human rights law are not “special rights” within the meaning of article 1(4). 31