Failure of United Nations anti-racism conference could have wide ranging negative consequences for human rights advocates
The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) is deeply concerned by the recent refusal of several states, including the United States, Australia, and the Netherlands, to engage in the upcoming UN anti-racism conference, and strongly urges all other UN member states to move toward the speedy adoption of the Durban Review outcome document recently issued. To withdraw from or undermine the process now could jeopardize positive developments in the area of human rights, and hurt efforts to reform the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC).
The United Nations anti-racism and anti-discrimination conference occurring in Geneva from 20-24 of April, otherwise known as the Durban Review Conference, is meant to mobilize the world’s governments to commit themselves to combating racism and other forms of discrimination. Diplomats have been bargaining over the wording and message of an outcome document for the Conference for several months with little progress. A complete breakdown in negotiations has been narrowly avoided several times. However, significant compromises have been made over the last several weeks to accommodate the demands of EU members and other states.
With the consent of the Palestinian delegation, particular references to the Palestine/Israel conflict have been taken out of the text, a highly regrettable but required concession to move the process forward. Also, significantly, the contentious concept of “defamation of religion” and other language that attempted to create restrictions on criticizing or insulting particular belief systems has been extracted. This has been replaced with language that reinforces international prohibitions against discrimination of an individual based on that person’s beliefs.
Human rights defenders and NGOs from around the world have consistently argued that the concept of “defamation of religion” undermines international standards of freedom of expression, and that International law clearly protects the rights of the individual, not particular belief systems.
According to Mr. Moataz El Fegiery, Executive Director of CIHRS, “The replacement of ‘defamation of religion’ with language protecting an individual’s freedom of belief represents a significant acknowledgment by the international community that international law does not recognize this concept, and that it should not be used by the United Nations.”
Despite these developments, the collapse of the Durban Review Conference and the abandonment of its outcome document remains a real possibility. Mr. El Fegiery concluded “The danger is that EU states will fail to engage in good faith and withdraw from the Conference despite the current outcome document’s positive aspects, or that some members of the League of Arab states or Organization of the Islamic Conference will undermine potential consensus through provocative and offensive rhetoric, or the reintroduction of controversial language into the text. Not only would this type of behavior sink the Durban Review Conference, but it could have a highly polarizing effect on the political dynamics of the Human Rights Council. If this happens, it will become increasingly difficult to prevent the Council from being undermined by negative actors that use political divisiveness as a tool to weaken the ability of the Council to carry out its mandate of protecting and promoting human rights around the world.”
Contacts: Arabic- Moataz El Fegiery- Executive Director, CIHRS (moataz@cihrs.org),
English- Jeremie Smith, Director- Geneva Office of CIHRS (jsmith@cihrs.org)
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