The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discrimination and the promotion of understanding among all races. The convention also requires its parties to criminalize hate speech and criminalize membership in racist organizations.
The convention also includes an individual complaints mechanism, effectively making it enforceable against its parties. This has led to the development of a limited jurisprudence on the interpretation and implementation of the convention.
The convention was adopted and opened for signature by the United Nations General Assembly on 21 December 1965,United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2106 (XX), 21 December 1965. and entered into force on 4 January 1969. As of July 2020, it has 88 countries as signatories and 182 countries as parties (including accessions and successions).
The convention is monitored by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
Genesis In December 1960, following incidents of antisemitism in several parts of the world, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning "all manifestations and practices of racial, religious and national hatred" as violations of the United Nations Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights and calling on the governments of all states to "take all necessary measures to prevent all manifestations of racial, religious and national hatred".United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1510 (XV), 12 December 1960. The Economic and Social Council followed this up by drafting a resolution on "manifestations of racial prejudice and national and religious intolerance", calling on governments to educate the public against intolerance and rescind discriminatory laws.United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1779 (XVII), 7 December 1962. Lack of time prevented this from being considered by the General Assembly in 1961,United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1684 (XVI), 18 December 1961. but it was passed the next year.
During the early debate on this resolution, African nations led by the Central African Republic, Chad, Dahomey, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, and Upper Volta pushed for more concrete action on the issue, in the form of an international convention against racial discrimination. Some nations preferred a declaration rather than a binding convention, while others wanted to deal with racial and religious intolerance in a single instrument. The eventual compromise, forced by the Arab nations' political opposition to treating religious intolerance at the same time as racial intolerance plus other nations' opinion that religious intolerance was less urgent,Schwelb, p. 999. was for two resolutions, one calling for a declaration and draft convention aimed at eliminating racial discrimination,United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1780 (XVII), 7 December 1962. the other doing the same for religious intolerance.United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1781 (XVII), 7 December 1962.
Article 4, criminalizing incitement to racial discrimination, was also controversial in the drafting stage. In the first debate of the article, there were two drafts, one presented by the United States and one by the Soviet Union and Poland. The United States, supported by the United Kingdom, proposed that only incitement "resulting in or likely to result in violence" should be prohibited, whereas the Soviet Union wanted to "prohibit and disband racist, fascist and any other organization practicing or inciting racial discrimination". The Nordic countries proposed a compromise in which a clause of "due regard" to the rights Universal Declaration of Human Rights was added to be taken into account when crimininalizing hate speech.
The draft Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was adopted by the General Assembly on 20 November 1963.United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1904 (XVIII), 20 November 1963. The same day the General Assembly called for the Economic and Social Council and the Commission on Human Rights to make the drafting of a Convention on the subject an absolute priority.United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1906 (XVIII), 20 November 1963. The draft was completed by mid-1964, but delays in the General Assembly meant that it could not be adopted that year. It was finally adopted on 21 December 1965.
Core provisions Definition of "racial discrimination"
Preamble of the Convention reaffirms dignity and equality before the law citing Charter of United Nations and Universal Declaration of Human Rights and condemns colonialism citing Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and also cites ILO Convention on Employment and Occupation (C111) and Convention against Discrimination in Education against discrimination.
Article 1 of the Convention defines "racial discrimination" as:
Distinctions made on the basis of citizenship (that is, between citizens and non-citizens) are specifically excluded from the definition, as are positive discrimination policies and other measures taken to redress imbalances and promote equity.
This definition does not distinguish between discrimination based on ethnicity and discrimination based on race, despite the following statement by anthropologists in the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The clear conclusion in the report is that race and ethnicity can be correlated, but must not get mixed up. The inclusion of descent specifically covers discrimination on the basis of caste and other forms of inherited status. Discrimination need not be strictly based on race or ethnicity for the convention to apply. Rather, whether a particular action or policy discriminates is judged by its effects.
The question of whether an individual belongs to a particular racial group is to be decided, in the absence of justification to the contrary, by self-identification.
Prevention of discrimination
Article 1 of the Convention does not prohibit discrimination based on nationality, citizenship or naturalization but prohibits discrimination "against any particular nationality".
Article 2 of the Convention condemns racial discrimination and obliges parties to "undertake to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms". It also obliges parties to promote understanding among all races. To achieve this, the Convention requires that signatories:
Not practice racial discrimination in public institutions Not "sponsor, defend, or support" racial discrimination Review existing policies, and amend or revoke those that cause or perpetuate racial discrimination Prohibit "by all appropriate means, including legislation," racial discrimination by individuals and organisations within their jurisdictions Encourage groups, movements, and other means that eliminate barriers between races, and discourage racial division
Parties are obliged "when the circumstances so warrant" to use positive discrimination policies for specific racial groups to guarantee "the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms". However, these measures must be finite, and "shall in no case entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved".
Article 5 expands upon the general obligation of Article 2 and creates a specific obligation to guarantee the right of everyone to equality before the law regardless of "race, colour, or national or ethnic origin". It further lists specific rights this equality must apply to: equal treatment by courts and tribunals, security of the person and freedom from violence, the civil and political rights affirmed in the ICCPR, the economic, social and cultural rights affirmed in the ICESCR, and the right of access to any place or service used by the general public, "such as transport hotels, restaurants, cafes, theatres and parks." This list is not exhaustive, and the obligation extends to all human rights.
Article 6 obliges parties to provide "effective protection and remedies" through the courts or other institutions for any act of racial discrimination. This includes a right to a legal remedy and damages for injury suffered due to discrimination.
Condemnation of apartheid
Article 3 condemns apartheid and racial segregation and obliges parties to "prevent, prohibit and eradicate" these practices in territories under their jurisdiction. This article has since been strengthened by the recognition of apartheid as a crime against humanity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 7.1(j).
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination regards this article as also entailing an obligation to eradicate the consequences of past policies of segregation, and to prevent racial segregation arising from the actions of private individuals.
Prohibition of incitement
Article 4 of the Convention condemns propaganda and organizations that attempt to justify discrimination or are based on the idea of racial supremacism. It obliges parties, "with due regard to the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights", to adopt "immediate and positive measures" to eradicate these forms of incitement and discrimination. Specifically, it obliges parties to criminalize hate speech, hate crimes and the financing of racist activities, and to prohibit and criminalize membership in organizations that "promote and incite" racial discrimination. A number of parties have reservations on this article, and interpret it as not permitting or requiring measures that infringe on the freedoms of speech, association or assembly.See "Reservations" below for more details.
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination regards this article as a mandatory obligation of parties to the convention, and has repeatedly criticized parties for failing to abide by it. It regards the obligation as consistent with the freedoms of opinion and expression affirmed in the UNDHR and ICCPR and notes that the latter specifically outlaws inciting racial discrimination, hatred and violence.ICCPR, Article 20.2. It views the provisions as necessary to prevent organised racial violence and the "political exploitation of ethnic difference."CERD General Recommendation No. 15, Paragraph 1.
Promotion of tolerance
Article 7 obliges parties to adopt "immediate and effective measures", particularly in education, to combat racial prejudice and encourage understanding and tolerance between different racial, ethnic and national groups.
Dispute resolution mechanism Articles 11 through 13 of the Convention establish a dispute resolution mechanism between parties. A party that believes another party is not implementing the Convention may complain to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The committee will pass on the complaint, and if it is not resolved between the two parties, may establish an ad hoc Conciliation Commission to investigate and make recommendations on the matter. This procedure has been first invoked in 2018, by Qatar against Saudi Arabia and UAE and by Palestine against Israel.
Article 22 further allows any dispute over the interpretation or application of the convention to be referred to the International Court of Justice. This clause has been invoked three times, by Georgia against Russia, by Ukraine against Russia, by Qatar against UAE.
Individual complaints mechanism