COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ADOPTS RECOMMENDATIONS ON APPLICATION OF PROVISIONS OF ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION
Press Release
RD/862
COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ADOPTS RECOMMENDATIONS ON APPLICATION OF PROVISIONS OF ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION
19960311 GENEVA, 8 March (UN Information Service) -- The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination this afternoon adopted recommendations aimed at assisting States to implement provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. States parties to the Convention are expected to take those recommendations into account when reporting on the measures they have taken to implement the treaty. The recommendations adopted concern articles 2 and 5 of that treaty, dealing with the adoption of policies to end racial discrimination and equality before the law.Under the terms of article 5, States parties undertake to prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality in the enjoyment of the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights listed in the article. The recommendation of the Committee underlines that the list is not exhaustive. Article 5, apart from requiring a guarantee that the exercise of human rights shall be free from racial discrimination, does not itself create those rights, but assumes their existence and recognition. The Committee recommends that States parties report about the non-discriminatory implementation of each of the rights and freedoms mentioned in article 5 one by one.
The second general recommendation relates to aspects of article 2 of the Convention, under which States parties are enjoined to take special and concrete measures to ensure the adequate development of certain racial groups, or individuals belonging to them, in order to guarantee them the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The recommendation notes that, in accordance with article 2 of the Convention and other international human rights instruments, governments should be sensitive to the rights of persons of ethnic groups, particularly their right to lead lives of dignity, to preserve their culture, to share equitably in the fruits of national growth, and to play their part in the government of the country of which its members are citizens.
The Committee further recommends that governments should consider vesting persons of ethnic or linguistic groups comprised of their citizens with competence to administer affairs of particular relevance to the preservation of the identity of such groups. But the panel emphasizes that,
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in accordance with the Declaration of the General Assembly on Friendly Relations, "none of its actions should be construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States conducting themselves in compliance with the principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples and possessing a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed or colour".
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