Addressing Racism in an Ever-Changing World

What is the future of international cooperation on human rights? How possible is it to hold dialog on racism and xenophobia without it becoming politically charged?

The Durban Review Conference, or the United Nations World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), began this past Monday in Geneva, Switzerland and is set to conclude tomorrow.  Ostensibly a meeting to identify and take action against continuing manifestations of racism and bigotry, the conference sparked outrage before it began and has been the scene of further controversy.

Numerous countries, consisting of Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and the United States, refused to attend, with the Czech Republic leaving on the first day.  Reasons included disproportionate criticism of Israel and the fact that many of the conference organizers come from countries with egregious human rights records, such as Libya, Iran, and Cuba.

Today, three groups were kicked out of the conference due to “unacceptable disruptive behavior:” the French Union of Jewish Students, the affiliated group Coexist, and the Neda Institute for Political and Scientific Research.  The first two were barred for disrupting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad’s speech, the Iranian Neda Institute for distributing inflammatory material.  This comes on the heels of the removal of members from the European Union of Jewish Students, the Women’s Association of Followers of Ahlul Bait, and B’nai Brith earlier in the week for political activism at the conference. With the general rise of civil society groups on the world stage in recent decades, this NGO activism should come as no surprise.

As the week draws to a close, it is important to ask ourselves: What outcomes would we have wanted to see and how can the international community demonstrate progress on this contentious topic? In the future, how can countries work together to combat racism in a substantive way?