37th session of the Human Rights Council

General Debate on Item 3

Statement by Ukraine

Mr. President,

Ukraine stands fully committed to respect and ensuring human rights and fundamental freedoms, implementation of principles of democracy and observance of rule of law.

Ukraine highly appreciates the contribution of the HRC and its special procedures in addressing the current human rights situation throughout Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders. We commend the work of the OHCHR Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) in collecting and analyzing facts related to the human rights, with an emphasis on temporarilyoccupied Crimea and certain areas of Donbas region where Russia-backed terrorists and Russian regular troops wage a hybrid war against the people of Ukraine.

Ukraine continues its path of comprehensive reforms, including constitutional, judiciary, anti-corruption and law-enforcement, and the reform of Ukraine’s education system is an important part of this process. In September 2017 the Parliament of Ukraine adopted the Law “On Education”,the provisions of Article 7 of which were examined by the Venice Commission upon the request of Ukraine. The Commission agreed that the Ukrainian language isone of the crucial components of national identity of theUkrainian people and a guarantee of its national sovereignty.

The Government of Ukraine is intended to fulfill the recommendations of the above Opinion in further steps to ensure a fair balance between improving the quality of teaching of the state language and preserving of the minorities’ identity and cultural heritage.

The implementation agenda is outlined in the relevant Road map, which includes all the envisaged legislative steps, measures to raise the quality of Ukrainian language teaching, as well as the draft language article of the draft specific Law “On General Secondary Education”. The road map, moreover, foresees several rounds of consultations with the national minorities to discuss the implementation modalities.