The Role of the United Nations in Dismantling Racism
Although racial justice has been a pressing domestic concern in the United States, with renewed attention in the last few years, the conversation rarely involves international mechanisms for improving domestic racial relations. This is the case despite the United States being party to an international treaty concerned explicitly with antiracism.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (“ICERD”) entered into force in 1969 as a multilateral treaty.[1] ICERD responded to “a sudden upsurge” of anti-Semitism in Germany in 1959.[2] Apartheid rule in Southern Africa and the civil rights movement also prompted the treaty.[3] The United Nations (“UN”) administers the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (“CERD”), the implementing body of the ICERD.[4] Each year, the CERD meets and evaluates the progress of State-Parties toward their commitments under the treaty.[5]
Although the treaty—and international law generally—can be seen as ineffectual due to limited enforcement mechanisms, the UN can play a supporting role in dismantling racist structures in domestic contexts by producing positive global scripts, or supportive international norms.[6] CERD members can grow domestic leaders’ understanding of racial issues and identify policies that have supported or dismantled racism within member countries.
The UN plays a critical comparative role. As a multilateral institution, the CERD can gather information about the policies of the United States and, ideally, distribute that information to those leaders who play critical roles in domestic affairs. Conversations with countries that do not share America’s history with slavery and persistent racial castes can provide key insights that America’s own leaders cannot see. By creating space for conversation and comparison, the CERD can help eliminate racism within the United States.
Further, ICERD provides a broader swath of rights than provided for in the American constitution. For example, Article V provides a detailed list of rights that should be protected for persons of all races including economic, social and cultural rights.[7] Although not constitutionally guaranteed, these expansive rights can serve to guide domestic policy makers on areas of concern, given their duty to comply with conventions to which the United States is a signatory.
The UN cannot dismantle domestic racism unilaterally. The accountability mechanisms provided by CERD can only work if they are embraced by American leaders at home. Although the CERD can play a role, its power and influence are notably limited. Thus, civil society actors must take concrete follow-up measures to ensure the work continues in the domestic context. While the role of the UN (and comparable institutions) is limited, it can play an essential role in continuing domestic commitments to dismantling racism. The CERD can best contribute by creating global scripts that can help dismantle racism as domestic leaders adopt and embed these scripts into their internal operations.
The United States’ legal obligations under ICERD provide a critical pathway for improving race relations domestically. The process of reviewing and tracking compliance with the convention can hold policy makers accountable and maintain the focus on anti-racism long after the cultural conversation moves on. Activists should submit reports to the CERD and urge the United States to be faithful in its obligations under the treaty.
Isabelle Laskero is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLVII.
[1] David P. Forsythe, “Racial Discrimination Convention,” Encyclopedia of Human Rights, Oxford University Press, 2009, accessed 4 December 2023, https://www-oxfordreference-com.fls.idm.oclc.org/display/10.1093/acref/9780195334029.001.0001/acref-9780195334029-e-230?rskey=MpadJ2&result=1.
[2] See id.
[3] Joshua Patrick Clark, The Global Fight Against Racial Discrimination: Human Rights Assessment and the Making of Obligation in Costa Rica and at the United Nations, UC Irvine, 2016, page 11.
[4] United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, “Introduction: Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,” accessed 16 February 2024 from https://www.ohchr.org/en/treaty-bodies/cerd/introduction.
[5] See United Nations, Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, General Assembly Official Records Seventy-Eighth Session Supplement No. 18, A/78/18.
[6] The term “global scripts” is attributable to Professor Susan Block-Lieb. See Susan Block-Lieb, Global Scripts in Transnational Legal Orders and Governance, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 18:81-99 (October 2022), https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-111621-125416 (Global scripts are the rules, norms, and standards in international texts, and the tacit assumptions that surround and give meaning to them).
[7] International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Article V(e).
This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.