To receive added insight into country conditions, CERD also receives reports provided by United Nations agencies, national institutes of human rights, and international and domestic NGO’s.īased on the country review, CERD issues an analysis and list of recommendations called Concluding Recommendations that are specific to that State party. During the review period, Member States also send government officials to answer the questions of committee members. Parties to ICERD must periodically submit written reports which detail their country’s progress toward fulfilling the goals of ICERD (article 9). ICERD authorizes the establishment of an international committee of experts to oversee Member State compliance with the treaty, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (hereinafter “CERD”) (articles 2 and 8). It remains the principal international human rights instrument defining and prohibiting racial discrimination in all sectors of private and public life.īy becoming a party to ICERD, States have declared that racial discrimination should be outlawed and have pledged themselves to abide by the terms of the Convention. The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was adopted in the 1965 and entered into force in 1969. While the principle of non-discrimination appears in Article 1 of the Charter of the United Nations and is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it was felt that this crucial rule of international law should receive due prominence in a legal instrument which elaborated the definitions and obligations in stemming from it. Thus began the next period of extraordinary change throughout the world a period that called on the United Nations to make real its promise of human rights and equality.Īfrican States newly emerging from colonial rule into independence and gaining membership in the United Nations began setting an agenda for the United Nations that included an increasing focus on decolonization, independence for South West Africa/Namibia, an end to apartheid in South Africa and codification of the customary law against racial discrimination. Hopes were invested in the creation of a new institution that would diffuse disputes between countries and redirect them to conference tables for dialogue and negotiations based on principles of sovereign equality.Īt the same time, groups of people within countries were seeing the changing world as finally opening the door for their compressed aspirations to be realized. The end of WWII came with enormous lessons for all of humanity and a sense that those lessons could be implemented to save the globe from a repeat of similar calamities. The early years of the United Nations were a time of extraordinary hope, energy, and promise. The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (hereinafter “ICERD” or “the Convention”) is the centerpiece of the international regime for the protection and enforcement of the right against racial discrimination. It has been recognized as having the exceptional character of jus cogens which creates obligations erga omnes, an obligation from which no derogation is acceptable. The prohibition against racial discrimination is fundamental and deeply entrenched in international law.
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