Twenty-Five Years after Durban, Speakers Demand Action against Racism, Reparatory Justice, Warn Artificial Intelligence Risks Entrenching Old Biases
‘The Time for Action Is Now,’ General Assembly President Says,
As Speakers Call for Historical Accountability, Concrete Change
Twenty-five years after the landmark Durban Declaration was adopted, speakers gathered at United Nations Headquarters today to warn that racism persists, as artificial intelligence and digital platforms risk amplifying discrimination and legacies of slavery and colonialism continue to drive inequality.
Commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, participants called for stronger anti-discrimination laws, reparatory justice, historical accountability and stronger political will, repeatedly stressing that a quarter-century of commitments must now translate into tangible change.
Assembly President Highlights Racism ‘Accountability Gap’
Khalilur Rahman (Bangladesh), President of the General Assembly, recalled that the international community came together in Durban with a shared conviction that racism is an assault on human dignity, racial discrimination entrenches injustice, and xenophobia and related intolerance threaten peace. Born in South Africa — “a heroic nation” whose people demonstrated that institutionalized racism could be overcome — the Declaration confronted racism as a structural force and remains the most comprehensive global framework against systemic racism and related intolerance.
Yet, he pointed to a striking accountability deficit: 78 of the 182 States parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination are significantly behind in their reporting, some by decades. “This is more than a reporting gap; it’s an accountability gap,” he stressed. “We cannot remedy inequalities we refuse to examine; we cannot dismantle discrimination we fail to measure.” Warning that racism can be embedded in institutions, concealed in supposedly neutral procedures and amplified by digital platforms, he declared: “The time for action is now.”
Racism Still Poisons Societies, Says Secretary General
Secretary-General António Guterres sounded a similar alarm. “As we see around the world, racism continues to poison societies, deepen inequalities, and deny people their fundamental rights and freedoms,” he said. Racism remains rooted in the legacies of colonialism, enslavement and oppression. “The antidote to these poisons is unity and tangible action,” he stressed, urging Governments to dismantle systemic discrimination and technology companies to address bias in artificial intelligence so digital technologies “advance equality, inclusion and digital justice, rather than undermine them”.
The world must also confront the enduring consequences of slavery and colonialism through “concrete measures to deliver reparatory justice grounded in international human rights law”, he continued, calling for the Second International Decade for People of African Descent to become “a decade of concrete change”.
Putting numbers behind those warnings, Claudia Fuentes Julio, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, speaking on behalf of the High Commissioner, reported that nearly one in five people worldwide experienced discrimination in the past 12 months. “These are not abstract statistics; they speak to lived realities,” she said. Inequalities cannot be understood or addressed without confronting the past, she stressed, describing reparatory justice as crucial to dismantling systemic racism against Africans and people of African descent. “Let’s turn commitments into real equality,” she urged, adding: “What is needed now is the political will to act.”
Ronald Lamola, South Africa's Minister for International Relations and Cooperation, cautioned that, a quarter-century after his country hosted the historic conference, “the global environment is not less challenging”. Yet, “even in these challenging moments, there are reasons for hope”, he said. “Past wrongs will not right themselves, historical distortions do not correct themselves and progress is always a product of a struggle,” he stressed, renewing calls for formal apologies, reparations and the return of cultural artefacts.
Speakers Call for Reparatory Justice, Historical Accountability
That demand for historical accountability reverberated through the general debate. Speaking for the African Group, the representative of Burkina Faso described Durban as a continuing “road map for advancing equality, inclusion and dignity”. Centuries of enslavement, colonial domination, apartheid and genocides created structural inequalities that still constrain development and access to opportunity, he said, calling for “reparatory justice, historical accountability, cultural restitution and remedial measures”.
Nigeria’s delegate concurred that addressing history is indispensable to tackling present inequality. “Addressing these legacies is not about re-opening history, but a necessary step to justice,” he stressed. Concurrently, racism is acquiring new dimensions through artificial intelligence, he warned. Without appropriate safeguards, AI “could entrench existing biases and further exacerbate racial discrimination”. Ultimately, the anniversary will be judged not by “how many meetings we hold or resolutions we pass”, but by meaningful improvements in the lives of those experiencing racism.
Ghana’s representative called for decisive action, “not more political declarations”. Twenty-five years after Durban, “we still must proclaim that Black Lives Matter”, he said, pointing to the international community’s failure to prevent genocide in Palestine, as the two-State solution becomes more elusive with each passing day, or to save the people of Sudan. He also recalled recurrent xenophobic attacks in South Africa and Africa’s continued lack of a permanent seat on the Security Council. “The Durban commitments must become reality, not a mere slogan,” he asserted.
The Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine said Durban carries particular significance for his people. The 2001 Declaration expressed concern over Palestinians living under foreign occupation and recognized their right to self-determination and an independent State. Yet Palestinians today continue to endure “an unlawful occupation” and are confronted with “genocide, continued ethnic cleansing and apartheid”, he said. “Historical injustice cannot be overcome through remembrance alone; it requires justice and reparation,” he stressed. The rights affirmed in Durban “must not merely be remembered. They must be realized — for all peoples, without exception”.
Broadening the lens, the representative of the Gambia warned of “troubling increases in xenophobia, anti-migrant sentiments and racially motivated violence” across regions, welcoming the Second International Decade for People of African Descent as “an important opportunity to advance recognition, justice and development”.
For Namibia, those legacies are grounded in national experience. Its representative recalled the country’s history of colonialism, genocide, institutional racism and apartheid, noting that its laws were deliberately designed to reject those injustices. He condemned “all efforts to tolerate, deny or trivialize racism”.
Also placing reparatory justice at centre stage, Jamaica’s representative — speaking for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) — stressed that “we should not only proclaim that all human beings are equal in dignity and rights but also demonstrate it”. Persistent racism against people of African descent is “not coincidental”, he said, but rooted in colonialism and the transatlantic trafficking in enslaved Africans. He welcomed recent United Nations recognition concerning trafficking as being “long overdue” and cited the renewed momentum it has generated for the global reparatory justice movement.
The representative of Barbados echoed that assessment, warning that progress over the past quarter-century has been accompanied by “stagnation and backsliding”. For the Caribbean, implementing Durban requires confronting the consequences of slavery, the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans, indentureship and colonialism. Reparatory justice must accompany efforts to dismantle the inequalities and discriminatory structures those histories created. “The challenge before us is not the absence of commitments. It is ensuring their implementation,” he stressed.
Artificial Intelligence, Digital Platforms Risk Amplifying Racial Discrimination
Alongside those calls to confront history, delegates warned that racism is rapidly acquiring new forms. Speaking for the Group of 77 and China, Uruguay’s representative voiced deep concern over an “alarming resurgence of all forms of racism”. Social media enables hatred to spread “at alarming speed”, while artificial intelligence increasingly amplifies information and disinformation, she observed. New technologies can be “extremely beneficial for sustainable development if used responsibly” but must not perpetuate or exacerbate structural inequalities, she added.
India’s representative concurred, warning of growing racist and xenophobic rhetoric targeting migrants and persons of foreign origin, including on digital platforms and through emerging technologies. Educational institutions, public discourse and digital spaces should foster mutual respect rather than normalize racial prejudice and hostility, he said, calling on States and technology platforms to prevent incitement to racial hatred and ensure accountability for racially motivated violence.
Mexico’s representative sounded a similar warning. Hate speech can spread rapidly through social platforms and contribute to narratives that dehumanize entire groups, while artificial intelligence and algorithms risk producing serious racial discrimination. “We need the governance of these technologies to be based on equality and non-discrimination,” she stressed. Education and historical memory, meanwhile, remain “indispensable tools to dismantle prejudices” in classrooms and digital spaces alike.
For his part, the European Union’s representative, speaking in its capacity as observer, highlighted the bloc’s legal and policy framework, including its Anti-Racism Strategy 2026-2030, developed with civil society.
Young People Demand Greater Voice in Shaping Policies, Technologies, Calling for Young People to Be Placed at the Centre of Durban’s Implementation
Marley Dias, youth activist and founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks, said many young people were never taught the histories that shaped the societies and institutions they inherited. “No country is free of racism, and we cannot dismantle what we are unwilling to examine honestly,” she stressed, insisting that affected communities help design and evaluate policies; “nothing for us without us”.
Youth representative Ester Sena reinforced that message. Young people of African descent “have ideas and we have solutions” and want to participate in the spaces where policies are designed, she said. But representation by itself cannot undo generations of structural injustice. Calling for tangible changes in resources, rights, opportunities and power, she stressed: “We can never confuse individual representativeness with structural change.”
That call for meaningful participation carried into an interactive panel on “Youth leadership: embedding anti-racism across everyday decisions, policy-making, institutions and technologies”, chaired by Pengiran Hairani Pengiran Haji Tajuddin (Brunei Darussalam).
Anatola Araba, futurist, filmmaker and creative technologist, urged institutions to support the imaginations of communities historically pushed to the margins. “Access to technology is not the same as agency to shape it,” she cautioned, also calling for intergenerational collaboration. Pointing to the Durban process as a model, lawyer and political activist Roger Wareham said it showed “how an organized civil society, particularly young people, can affect change” at all levels and helped make reparations for African people a global issue.
Jo Banner, founder and director of the Descendants Project, urged greater protection for human rights defenders, stressing: “People of African descent should be acknowledged as rights holders, not just stakeholders.”
James Ndirangu Waweru, Chair-Rapporteur, warned that “racism and racial discrimination continue to shape our lives, institutions and opportunities”, increasingly intersecting with other forms of discrimination and acquiring new dimensions through technology. Amid weakening trust and profound global uncertainty, the Durban commitments remain indispensable, he stressed, underscoring that ending racism is essential to peace and development.
Meeting participants also approved a draft political declaration marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, which will be submitted for formal adoption at a subsequent plenary meeting of the General Assembly.