A/HRC/28/81 Women (CEDAW) in its General Recommendation No. 25 stated that under the Convention, temporary special measures “should target discriminatory dimensions of past and current societal and cultural contexts which impede women’s enjoyment of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.” The notion of positive action should be similarly applied in the context of the rights to race-based equality and non-discrimination protected by the ICERD. The CERD General Recommendation No. 32 went a long way toward defining special measures as mandatory in a substantive equality paradigm, departing decisively from interpreting them as a supplementary afterthought. Having identified patterns of substantive inequality, including on the grounds of race, ethnicity and nationality, States should be required to take positive action measures to address them. 76. Special measures could be classified into different categories according to the purpose, or the compelling public interest they satisfy. She outlined different typologies of special measures identified both in the academic literature and in legislation. Professor Christopher McCrudden had identified five different types of affirmative action: (i) eradication of practices that have the effect of disadvantaging a particular group, such as a word-of-mouth hiring; (ii) policies that seek to increase the proportion of members of a previously excluded or under-represented group; (iii) outreach programmes, designed to attract members of under-represented groups; (iv) preferential treatment, or reverse discrimination in favour of a certain group; (v) redefining merit by altering the qualifications necessary for a post so as to encourage recruitment or promotion of members of a disadvantaged group. It should be noted, however, that “reverse discrimination” was increasingly excluded from the scope of legitimate special measures, as was the synonymous “positive discrimination” – justly described by CERD as a contradiction in terms. 77. She added that the countries which have significant experience in applying positive action measures included Canada, South Africa, some of the Member States of the European Union, the USA, and India. But there were also cautionary tales, such as Malaysian experience, where measures seemingly developed into entrenched privileges. 78. She recommended that: (i) UN mandate holders should engage in an effort to consolidate, harmonize and update the international human rights framework related to equality, in order to position special measures/positive action in the new, holistic legal framework, which was capable of reflecting both the overarching aspects and the “intersectionalities” of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance with all other forms of bias and discrimination; and (ii) UN mandate holders, particularly the treaty bodies, should issue interpretative guidance to construe the denial of special measures as a form of discrimination, by analogy with the denial of reasonable accommodation in CRPD. The lack of positive action (also known as affirmative action or special measures) to overcome past disadvantage and accelerate progress towards equality of particular groups could constitute a violation of the right to non-discrimination or the right to equality. She explained that was not a new standard, but simply a corollary of the recognition of special measures as a necessary part of the right to non-discrimination, and of their mandatory character (the expert referenced CERD General Recommendation 32, paras. 20 and 30). Positive action measures were most commonly used to promote equality within the ambit of socio-economic rights such as, for example, education, work, housing or health. Examples included the recognition of special protection and special consideration to the needs of the Roma due to their different lifestyle (Orsus v. Croatia, European Court of Human Rights). 79. She noted that, in her view there were no significant substantive nor procedural gaps in the international human rights legal system related to special measures. Rather there was: (i) a need to update, harmonise and unify the international legal framework related to equality, and (ii) a need to fill certain interpretative gaps, and provide guidance on certain aspects of “special measures”, including through explicit recognition that the denial of 38