African states adopt the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Caribbean leaders signed the treaty establishing a regional community for economic integration and foreign-policy coordination. CARICOM later became a platform through which Caribbean governments...

The General Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Its treatment of institutionalized racial domination as an international crime...

Angola’s independence followed armed anticolonial struggle and the end of Portuguese rule. African liberation movements linked sovereignty to resistance against colonial extraction; the ensuing...

Students protested the imposition of Afrikaans in Black schools and the broader apartheid education system. Police violence and mass resistance turned Soweto into a global symbol of youth-led...

The declaration rejected claims that race determined intellectual or moral capacity and condemned racial discrimination. It challenged pseudoscientific ideas that had justified slavery, colonialism,...

The Geneva conference reviewed international efforts against racism and racial discrimination, including the persistence of apartheid and colonial legacies. Its debates showed that formal bans on...

After the required ratifications, the Charter became binding for its parties. Article 5 prohibits slavery, the slave trade, torture, and degrading treatment. The instrument gave regional legal force...

Article 68 of the Constitution’s Transitional Provisions recognizes definitive land ownership for descendants of quilombo communities who occupy their lands. This constitutional claim linked...

The election ended apartheid’s system of racially restricted political participation and brought the African National Congress to power. It followed a long liberation struggle and marked a decisive...

The Rome Statute listed enslavement among crimes against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on civilians. The instrument created a basis for individual criminal...