A Brief History
On December 21, 1965, the United Nations, often accused of being a useless organization, outlawed racism by passing The International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. This agreement went into effect in 1969 and to date has been signed by 87 nations (somewhat less than half of nations in the United Nations).
Digging Deeper
This convention called upon all member nations to “outlaw hate speech and to criminalize membership in racist organizations.” Some of the nifty articles cover: methods to prevent discrimination, also in regard to immigration policies; definitions of appropriate terms; ways of resolving disputes and conflicts such as seeking redress; equality before the law; the condemnation of apartheid and segregation as well as the “caste” system of social stratification; the prohibition of violence-inciting speech; and the promotion of tolerance.
The U.S., as one would expect, is a signatory and has a representative on the committee, but reserves the right to follow its own practices in some matter such as free speech. As a matter of fact, many other signatory countries find exception to the convention as well and have their own individual reservations concerning various aspects of it, which, of course, means that having the convention is somewhat of a joke, especially since not all UN-member countries even agreed to it in the first place.
We do not really see the UN taking any remedial action on the “Kill all the Jews” and “Destroy Israel” speeches and attitudes in the Muslim world. The U.S. has not outlawed the Nazi party or the Aryan Nation and has done nothing to outlaw black militants who have spouted violent rhetoric even in recent days. In Israel, non-Jews do not have the same status as Jewish citizens, and in the theocracy of Iran, only Muslim men have full rights, to say nothing of the way women are treated in a large part of the world.
Unfortunately, for now this convention seems to be just a nice symbolic gesture and nothing of any real substance. The day when the world puts racial differences and discrimination behind it is probably still well in the future. Question for students (and subscribers): When do you think it will be achieved? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Meisler, Stanley. United Nations: A History. Grove Press, 2011.
The featured image in this article, a photograph taken by Garry Knight from London, England at the March Against Racism on Saturday, 18th March 2017, is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
