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Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Opens One Hundred and Ninth Session in Geneva
11 April 2023
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination this morning opened its one hundred and ninth session in Geneva, during which it will review anti-discrimination efforts by Argentina, Niger, Philippines, Portugal, Russian Federation and Tajikistan. The Committee heard from the Representative of the Secretary-General and adopted the session’s agenda.
Nada Al-Nashif, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights and Representative of the Secretary-General, warmly congratulated the Committee for the pathbreaking work it had done during recent years to press States to better fulfil their anti-racism obligations. Its work regarding racial justice since the killing of George Floyd, a deeply distressing reminder of entrenched, systemic racism, had been particularly timely and meaningful.
Ms. Al-Nashif said that this year marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was an opportunity to pause and reflect on how all could make the promises of the Universal Declaration and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination a reality for the millions of people who had been left behind on the human rights journey.
No country in the world was free from racial discrimination and racism, Ms. Al-Nashif said. In his open letter on 3 March 2023, the High Commissioner for Human Rights called on each Government to take specific and urgent actions in this area, including concrete action to confront the past legacies of racial discrimination and deliver reparatory justice. Many groups, in particular people of African descent and indigenous peoples, still faced longstanding, often structural inequalities stemming from colonialism and the slave trade, to which the States and the international community generally had yet to respond adequately. This needed to change. Ms. Al-Nashif encouraged the Committee to continue to collaborate closely with other anti-racism mechanisms in the United Nations system and beyond.
The Office of the High Commissioner had supported the launch of a Regional Network for development and anti-racism in the Middle East and North Africa region in the context of the International Decade for People of African Descent. The Network had pledged to work with the United Nations system and national and international organizations to contribute to the elimination of racial discrimination in all its forms and manifestations in the Middle East and North Africa region.
As part of the High Commissioner’s “Human Rights 75” initiative, the monthly spotlight in March 2023 focused on racial justice. States were called upon to take concrete steps to tackle persistent and emerging forms of racial discrimination, and to repair long-standing human rights violations, including those rooted in legacies of enslavement and colonialism. The High Commissioner made a specific call for States that were not yet parties to the Convention to become so, and for States that were already parties to make a declaration of acceptance of the Committee’s competence to review individual cases. Specific activities aimed at securing the ratification of the Convention would be undertaken within the ratification campaign that the Office was leading throughout the year. Ms. Al-Nashif called on the Committee to join advocacy efforts.
The High Commissioner would present the third report on racial justice and equality to the forty-fifth session of the Human Rights Council in September, followed by an enhanced interactive dialogue with affected individuals. The report would maintain its focus on systemic racism and advancing transformative change for racial justice and equality for Africans and people of African descent, while taking a closer look at the issue of participation in public affairs as an enabler for the advancement of all human rights.
The Permanent Forum on People of African Descent had become operational. Its historic inaugural session was held in Geneva from 5 to 8 December last year, bringing together over 700 participants to hold substantive discussions around issues of systemic racism, climate justice, reparatory justice, and equality for all people of African descent. The core mandate of the Permanent Forum was the elaboration of a United Nations declaration on the promotion, protection and full respect of the human rights of people of African descent. The second session was scheduled to be held in New York from 30 May to 2 June. Ms. Al-Nashif said she looked forward to seeing synergies between the Forum and the Committee deepen in the years to come.
The Office of the High Commissioner had convened regular virtual and in-person consultations to inform its work to advance the implementation of the High Commissioner’s Agenda towards transformative change for racial justice and equality, launched in 2021. Over the course of this month, the Office was deploying regional advisors across all regions of the globe to work on combatting racial discrimination and protecting minorities. The work of the Committee would inform these advisors’ efforts.
The Office was in the process of finalising elements for a plan to implement the conclusions adopted by the Chairpersons of the treaty bodies last June. These, Ms. Al-Nashif said, would further facilitate the Committee’s work, notably by introducing a predictable review calendar. There was chronic under-funding of the treaty body system that had contributed to significant backlogs in the handling of State party reports and individual communications. Advancing the full implementation of treaty-based human rights obligations required sustainable funding from Member States. The High Commissioner was committed to doing his utmost to support greater funding for the human rights mechanisms during his tenure.
In concluding remarks, Ms. Al-Nashif extended her best wishes to the Committee for a successful and productive session.
Verene Albertha Shepherd, Committee Chairperson, thanked the Deputy High Commissioner for raising the issue of reparatory justice, which was receiving increased attention across the United Nations system. She expressed hope that the treaty body system would receive the funding that it required. She also expressed her condolences and solidarity with the people of Türkiye and Syria who were affected by the recent earthquake.
Ms. Shepherd said the presence of so many human rights leaders at the opening of the session demonstrated that there continued to be a heightened interest in the work of the Committee. These people and members of the Committee shared a common concern for the creation of a world in which racism, racial discrimination and related intolerance played no part. They believed in the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the group of international instruments adopted after World War II to protect the human rights and inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of the human family. However, too many peoples’ rights continued to be undermined by the prevalence of systemic racism and racial discrimination against Africans and people of African descent, Asians and people of Asian descent, migrants, asylum seekers and ethnic minorities. Xenophobia had also increased around the globe. The Committee, Ms. Shepherd said in closing, needed to do all it could within its mandate to make a difference and protect the rights of the marginalised and vulnerable.
Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found here, while webcasts of the public meetings can be found here. The programme of work of the Committee’s one hundred and ninth session and other documents related to the session can be found here.
The Committee will next meet in public on Wednesday, 12 April at 3 p.m. to consider the combined twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth periodic reports of the Russian Federation (CERD/C/RUS/25-26).
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