World Conference Against Racism

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The World Conference against Racism ( English : World Conference against Racism , international abbreviation : WCAR are international conferences) United Nations , the political measures in the global fight against racism should promote. So far, three world conferences were held, and in 2009 the Swiss Geneva , the follow-up conference to the World Conference of Durban .

Previous conferences

The 1978 and 1983 Conferences

The first World Conference on Combating Racism and Racial Discrimination was held by UNESCO in 1978 in Geneva . One of the main themes was apartheid in South Africa , with racial segregation and discrimination being discussed. The second world conference was also held in Geneva in 1983.

Third World Conference 2001 in Durban

The Third World Conference, entitled " World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, " was held from August 31 to September 7, 2001, and was chaired by Mary Robinson, the High Commissioner for Human Rights . The conference location Durban in South Africa was chosen to symbolically honor the fight against apartheid. The conference ended with a final declaration linked to an action program calling on all governments to adopt their own national action plans.

The General Assembly of the United Nations had previously determined five thematic complexes that went beyond the focus of apartheid at the first two world conferences. These goods:

  1. Sources, causes, forms and current manifestation of racism;
  2. Victims of racism;
  3. Preventive measures;
  4. Redress and compensation measures;
  5. Strategies for Realizing Equality.

The concern of African states in particular to deal with current forms of racism was expressed in the expanded title of the world conference, which included " Xenophobia and related intolerance ". The program of action encourages states to take scientifically sound stocktaking and to analyze forms of institutional discrimination and to examine legislation. The world conference in Durban was accompanied by an NGO conference with 10,000 affected people from all over the world. This great mobilization was supported by the state of South Africa.

The black civil society groups had advocated a change of perspective towards the victims of racism. The final declaration recognized slavery and the slave trade (across the Atlantic, the Sahara and the Indian Ocean) as crimes against humanity and recognized that colonialism leads to racism. The African states and the black non-governmental organizations did not succeed in introducing an excuse for past crimes legitimized with racism into the final text, and certainly not reparations for these crimes and their consequences were agreed. The group only achieved a call for debt relief for African states, for aid against AIDS , for the illegally transferred assets of former African dictators to be returned from Western accounts and for an end to human trafficking. A moral obligation to strengthen partnership with the African continent has been included in the action plan.

The treatment of the Palestinians by Israel was a major point of contention . In the final declaration the Palestinians were mentioned as victims of racism, the demands of the NGO conference that the cause of the Israeli policy towards the Palestinians was an institutionalized form of racism and apartheid, was not considered by the conference of states. The NGO conference also calls for the re-enforcement of UN Resolution 3379 of 1975, which designated Zionism as a form of racism and imperialism. Because of this criticism, Israel and the United States withdrew their delegations. The final text of the resolution avoided mentioning Israel, but recognized the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and criticized the foreign occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The results of the Third World Conference against Racism were  soon pushed into the background by the plane bombings on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th - three days after the conference ended.

Durban Review Conference 2009 in Geneva

From 20 to 24 April 2009, the United Nations held in Geneva the " Durban Review Conference ". The follow-up conference served to assess the implementation of the final declaration adopted in Durban in 2001 and the associated action program.

Sections of the West raised criticism of this conference with a view to both the previous conference, which they perceived as hostile to Israel , and the efforts of Islamic countries to make criticism of religions punishable as "denigration" and "insult". to ostracize.

The French author Pascal Bruckner and numerous Western intellectuals, including Ralph Giordano , Necla Kelek and Peter Schneider from Germany , called for a boycott of the follow-up conference in July 2008 . On April 19, 2009, Australia , Germany , Israel , Italy , Canada , the Netherlands , New Zealand , Poland , Sweden , the Czech Republic and the United States canceled their participation.

The appearance of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad , who used a speech during the opening event to attack the hostile state of Israel, caused a scandal right at the beginning of the conference . He accused Israel of being the "cruelest and most racist regime". Zionism is "racism personified". "Zionists and their allies" had also planned the Iraq war. At the beginning of Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli statements, delegates from European states left the room in protest; Norway's representative, however, contradicted the Iranian president in plenary. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticized Ahmadinejad's speech as "the opposite of what this conference aims to achieve". He has "never seen" such a "destructive action by a UN member". The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay , who had repeatedly called on states to participate in the conference, also rejected Ahmadinejad's remarks. French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke of a "hate speech" to which the European Union had to respond with "extreme determination".

The Libyan chairman of the main committee of the conference, Najjat ​​al-Hajjaji, caused a further uproar by interrupting the Palestinian doctor Ashraf Al Hajuj , who spoke on behalf of the UN Watch organization , several times and ultimately depriving him of the right to speak. Hajuj, who, together with five Bulgarian nurses, had been unjustly imprisoned in Libya for eight years and ill-treated in custody (see also the HIV trial in Libya ), wanted to present his fate to the plenary present and obtain a conviction of Libya. Al-Hajjaji justified her decision by claiming that the presented case had nothing to do with the topics of the conference.

In the media coverage before and during the world conference, it was hardly noticed that many experts assessed the summit in a more differentiated and positive manner than the above-mentioned publicists. The director of the German Institute for Human Rights Heiner Bielefeldt had advised against a boycott. The institute welcomed the final declaration of the Geneva follow-up conference as an “excellent basis” for the further implementation of the Durban resolutions. The Geneva final document does not contain a condemnation of Israel, nor does it contain a ban on denigrating religion in line with the wish of Islamic states, but it does contain a warning against the Holocaust . The federal government later stated that it was carrying the Geneva final document.

National action plans

In the action program of the World Conference on Racism in Durban it was stated that governments, with the involvement of civil society , should develop national action plans in order to implement the recommendations contained in the action program. In October 2007, fifteen states had adopted National Action Plans against Racism.

Of the German-speaking countries, Liechtenstein drew up such a plan in 2003 and Germany in 2008. In Germany, the Federal Cabinet passed the National Action Plan on October 8, 2008. The plan was criticized by human rights organizations as being insubstantial. There had been controversial disputes between the lead Federal Ministry of the Interior and civil society organizations since 2001. Some of the statements were forwarded to the United Nations by the federal government together with the action plan.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The final declaration of the NGO conference on ipo.org
  2. ^ Veit Medick : Anti-Racism Conference: Iran's President uses UN summit to incite Israel. In: Spiegel Online . April 20, 2009. Retrieved February 7, 2017 .
  3. ^ Anti-Racism Conference: Delegates leave the room at the Ahmadinejad speech. In: Spiegel Online . April 20, 2009. Retrieved February 7, 2017 .
  4. ↑ daily news 04/20/2009 20:00. In: tagesschau.de. April 20, 2009. Retrieved February 7, 2017 .
  5. ↑ http://www.tagesschau.de:80/ausland/rassismuskonferenz124.html ( Memento from April 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Bulgarian nurses: Gaddafi's son confirms torture and show trial. In: Spiegel Online . August 9, 2007, accessed February 7, 2017 .
  7. ↑ http://www.unwatch.org/site/c.bdKKISNqEmG/b.5109305/k.891C/Confrontation_at_Durban_II.htm ( Memento from April 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Heiner Bielefeldt: Combating Racism in the Controversy of International Human Rights Policy. German Institute for Human Rights, March 2009 (PDF)
  9. ↑ Statement German Institute for Human Rights - Durban Review Conference, April 23, 2009 (PDF)
  10. ↑ BT-Drs. 16/1337 p. 3 5.6.09 Written questions
  11. ↑ Geneva final document (PDF)