UN sets course for World Conference against Racism

The General Assembly adopted ICERD amid decolonization and the global struggle against apartheid. The convention strengthened legal duties against racial discrimination. It supplied an important...

The UN adopted a convention providing that statutory time limits do not apply to war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined in the postwar framework. It became relevant to later reparations...

Representative John Conyers introduced H.R. 40 in the 101st Congress. The proposal sought a commission to examine slavery, discrimination and possible reparations for African Americans. It placed...

The First Pan-African Conference on Reparations adopted the Abuja Proclamation, framing slavery, the slave trade and colonialism as harms requiring repair. It called on the international community...

MP Bernie Grant introduced an Early Day Motion welcoming the Abuja conference and urging recognition of the international community’s moral debt. Parliamentary advocacy translated a Pan-African...

The Rome Statute lists enslavement among crimes against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, with knowledge of the attack. Its...

Civil-society organizations met before the World Conference against Racism. The NGO forum advanced a more direct account of transatlantic slavery, colonialism and reparations than many governments...

The UN World Conference against Racism opened in Durban, South Africa. African states, Caribbean states, diaspora movements and NGOs brought slavery and colonialism into a major multilateral debate on...

The World Conference adopted the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. Paragraph 13 recognizes that slavery and the slave trade, particularly the transatlantic trade, are crimes against humanity...

The UN Commission on Human Rights established a dedicated expert body to study problems of racial discrimination faced by people of African descent and recommend measures. The institutional pathway...