In 1997, the Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations General Assembly decided to convene the third World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa. All the major United Nations treaties protecting individuals from racial discrimination had been adopted prior to 1997 and the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance had been created in 1993. But the Durban Conference, symbolically held in post- apartheid South Africa, generated new momentum for these political and legal commitments against racial discrimination. This chapter presents an overview of the United Nations mechanisms and initiatives tackling racial discrimination and the thematic developments since 1997. In light of contemporary challenges posed by the use of technology and pandemics, and reflecting on the intersectional nature of discrimination, it concludes with reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the United Nations response to racial discrimination. The chapter identifies areas for further attention, including racial profiling in law enforcement and border security, racism in sport, and the deepening inequalities caused by global emergencies.
AbstractInternational law prohibits slavery and slavery-like practices under treaties that have been in force for more than a century. Yet, contemporary forms of slavery are one of the prevailing challenges for the international community, with 40.3 million people in modern slavery on any given day in 2016. The State has been largely overlooked as a perpetrator or accomplice in the global movement to eradicate modern slavery. The hand of the State can however be found in contemporary cases of modern slavery. This article identifies five scenarios of State involvement in modern slavery and aims to uncover and bridge the responsibility gap.
Abstract The awakening of inter-state communications with the first ever three cases before the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2018 has inspired new avenues of research about their potential and shortfalls. This article opens a new line of exploration, considering the mechanism's potential as an avenue for collective action at a time when many States are responding to violations of international law, even when not directly affected by those violations. Those responses have included massive third-party interventions (Ukraine v Russia), and the initiation of proceedings before the icj by States not directly injured (The Gambia v Myanmar, Canada and the Netherlands v Syrian Arab Republic, South Africa v Israel). This article argues that enabling collective inter-state communications before UN treaty bodies could strengthen the mechanism as an avenue for treaty compliance and the protection of human rights, and for amplifying sovereign voices as part of peaceful dispute settlement processes.