AFTERNOON


HR/SC/99/9
10 August 1999





The Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights continued this afternoon to discuss racism and xenophobia, with representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and its own Experts remarking on the spread of racist and xenophobic practices across the globe despite the efforts of the United Nations and the international community to combat them.

Acts of racism or discrimination should be illegal and punished, Subcommission Expert El-Hadji Guisse said. He and others called for particular attention to the rights of migrant workers, while Subcommission Experts Rajenda Kalidas Wimala Gooneskere and Asbjorn Eide discussed the role of one attempted method to rectify the effects of discrimination -- affirmative action -- and offered opinions on what it was and under which circumstances it was appropriate.

Other Experts addressing the meeting were Francoise Jane Hampson and Marc Bossuyt.

Representatives of the following NGOs also spoke: Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation; World Federation of Trade Unions; Pax Romana; Association de defense des Tunisiens a l'etranger; International Educational Development; American Association of Jurists; and World Muslim Congress.

The Sub-Commission will reconvene in plenary at 3 p.m. Wednesday, 11 August, to discuss the realization of economic, social and cultural rights.

Statements

FRANCOISE JANE HAMPSON, Subcommission Expert, said the working paper on non-citizens should be considered carefully. Many of the issues raised would benefit from further examination in another report. Some of the problems in assuring the human rights of non-citizens occurred as a result of accidents of history which had not yet been corrected.

Where citizenship was the basis on which a right or entitlement was granted, at least one knew what non-citizens were being excluded from. In many cases, however, States used different criteria for different purposes. Nationality was often used coterminously with citizenship. Until it was established that a particular jurisdiction used the terms interchangeably, that should not be assumed.

The media played a vital role in shaping public perception as well as reflecting public perception of minorities, refugees and asylum seekers, other non-citizens and groups outside national frontiers. States had a responsibility not to discriminate, directly or indirectly, but they also had a responsibility to prevent at least some discriminatory practices on the part of others. When it came to the role of the media, States might be confronted with competing pressures. On one hand, they were obliged to take effective action against those who disseminated ideas based on racial superiority or hatred. On the other hand, States must protect freedom of expression and in particular the important role of the media.

FIRDOUS SYED BABA, of Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation, said the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination reflected the great concern of the UN in eliminating the menace of xenophobia. It revealed the resolve of the international community through the UN to end discriminations based on colour, race or religion.

In spite of this, xenophobia was assuming menacing proportions in the world today. Xenophobic practices were leading to grave human-rights violations, notably in the case of the so-called "Jehad", in whose name horrors had been committed in different parts of the world. Many an investigation had pointed to the Pakistani connection in these events. The Subcommission and the international community should apply pressure on Pakistan to stop this dangerous trend of promoting xenophobia.

EL-HADJI GUISSE, Subcommission Expert, said racism existed in spite of efforts in various regions of the world to combat it. In Sudan, efforts to abolish trafficking in slaves were inadequate. Over the past twenty years steps taken to abolish slavery in Sudan had been inadequate. There, individuals were being sold like animals. This was an affront to their human dignity. In other countries such as the United States, racial discrimination also existed. Migrant workers suffered from considerable discrimination, and labour unions should take up this cause. In the same country, capital punishment was meted out more frequently to people of colour.

Asylum-seekers in Europe were subject to inhumane treatment from law-enforcement officers. Serious violations based on racial discrimination were evident there, and legal measures were needed to combat these and other institutionalized forms of racism. The European Court of Human Rights recently had condemned torture. This was a positive example to draw on.

KAREN TALBOT, of World Federation of Trade Unions, said on that the threshhold of a new millennium when humankind should be looking to a bright future marked by great advancement in eradicating the reprehensible social ills of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance, there was an unprecedented number of conflicts, including acts of genocide, ignited on the basis of these very scourges. These conflicts had proliferated in all parts of the globe since the end of the Cold War, when the world's people had every reason to hope the age of dangerous confrontation was past. Such conflicts had been raging in the Balkans, Africa and South Asia, among other places.

Many argued that racial discrimination and xenophobia were as old as the human species. Undoubtedly, there had been expressions of these social pathologies from time to time throughout much of history. However, cooperation and community were the most compelling characteristics of human beings, who had to be carefully taught to hate. With these considerations in mind, it seemed imperative to look at these phenomena of racism and xenophobia not as semi-instinctual but to probe elsewhere for diagnoses of the social pathogens and mutagens penetrating from without, spreading through the human family and resulting in such incomprehensible and increasing brutality.

MARC BOSSUYT, Subcommission Expert, said new developments had taken place, especially since the adoption of the Declaration on the Human Rights of Migrants. International conventions did not forbid distinctions, unless they took the form of discrimination. It was a matter of establishing when a distinction was arbitrary and unjustifiable. There should be no difference in treatment if it was based on an irrelevant ground. There could be no justifiable distinction between citizens and non-citizens when it came to human rights. The right to vote or to stand for election should not be discriminatory.

Migrants should be treated as nationals, to the extent that they paid taxes and social security. Foreign workers should be able to benefit from health services, as long as they had contributed. A State could not have the same duties with respect to the needs of foreigners living on national territory, however. Illegal foreigners, or undocumented aliens, presented a specific problem. Such persons were particularly vulnerable. No distinctions could be made with regard to civil rights. A distinction could be made in the case of non-nationals with regard to political rights.

States could grant political rights to non-citizens. Among new developments were those posed by the Tzigane, or Roma. They were a large problem, geographically, and required a joint programme of action. A study should be carried out on the matter.

RAJENDA KALIDAS WIMALA GOONESEKERE, Subcommission Expert, said affirmative action was closely aligned with the principle of equality. Affirmative action had been adopted in the United States because of some suffered unequal opportunities in their efforts to compete with others in the work place. Voting and housing opportunities were also unequal there. In India, the principle of affirmative action was recognized in the Constitution. In Sri Lanka, there was no quota system guaranteed under the Constitution, but quotas in the public services sector eventually were adopted.

Affirmative action could take different forms. It could be applied to groups of people who were numerically in the majority but who had, nonetheless, unequal access to resources and rights. However, the principle of affirmative action must not override other human-rights principles.

R. J. RAJKUMAR, of Pax Romana, said that in his 1999 World Day of Peace message, the Pope had pointed out a particularly serious form of discrimination, namely the denial to ethnic groups and national minorities of the fundamental right to exist as such. Historically, ethnic groupings were frequently used as a divisive force by colonial powers to consolidate their hegemony over them. The emergence of modern nation States since World War II and the re-emergence of States during the 90s had hardly changed the situation of ethnic groups regarding their human rights.

In 1996, some African bishops had pointed out that in the political scene taking shape there, ethnic factors had proved to be an element of division more often than of integration. Ethnic conflicts persisted in the Great Lakes region of Africa, with disastrous consequences. As the bishops had stated, this was the result of manipulation of ethnic factors for political, hegemonic, economic or cultural ends.

NEFISSA MILAD, of Association de defense des Tunisiens a l'etranger, said the protection of immigrants was one of the fundamental issues of the time, especially in Tunisia, where immigrants were an integral part of society. A situation of inequality detrimental to immigrants, and contrary to international human-rights covenants, could not be tolerated.

There had been violations of the rights of Tunisians living abroad. Immigrants had become scapegoats in many countries, held guilty for all economic-growth problems. Foreigners were victims of haphazard discriminatory situations, and were without security. NGOs should contribute to constructing a forum for North-South dialogue that would protect ethnic individuality. Perceptions of immigrants should be changed.

ASBJORN EIDE, Subcommission Expert, said that in terms of the principle of affirmative action, it was important to distinguish between transitional measures (largely social) to temporarily assist disadvantaged groups and those permanent (largely cultural) measures taken to preserve the rights of minority groups to their own identities. Regarding the human rights of citizens and non-citizens, no distinctions should be made with the exception of political rights -- which did not need to be extended to non-citizens. Another situation of note was that which concerned the right to return to one's own country or the country where a person had legal status to reside.

Regarding children, no distinction should be made between children who were residing legally or illegally in a country. There had been a particular case in Norway where children residing illegally in the country were, nonetheless, required to have equal access to educational opportunities. The Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination did not discriminate between residents residing legally or those residing illegally in a country. This was logical, as this distinction was not necessarily race specific.

Globalization reduced the role of the State and increased the role of international institutions. Therefore human-rights principles should be more thoughtfully applied to these organizations. Globalization tended to exacerbate racial and religious tensions, for while it allowed for a freerer flow of the movement of capital, it limited the freedom of movement of labour.

KAREN PARKER, of International Educational Development, said racism and the pitting of one ethnic group against another was one of the major factors in most of the nearly 40 wars and 20 near wars that had been documented this year. Surely, it was not possible to address the wars in Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, East Timor, the Moluccas, Acheh, Burma and Kosovo without taking into account the actual practice of extreme racial and ethnic discrimination and even political disenfranchisement that had taken place in these countries.

Racism was especially evident in two wars -- the Kurdish/Turkey war and the Tamil/Sri Lanka war. How could one hope to address either of these wars without acknowledging the extremes to which both Sri Lanka and Turkey had gone to annihilate the Tamil and Kurdish peoples? Both countries also attempted to hide their racist policies and defend against serious violations of the Geneva Conventions and all applicable rules of humanitarian law they had committed by trying to characterize these wars as terrorism and counter-terrorism, and by trying to make the victims of their violations -- the Kurdish people and the Tamil people -- international outcasts. It was a low moment in human rights when the perpetrators of the extreme level of violations of humanitarian law as confirmed by every credible source of information over the past 10 years remained uncensored. It was a low moment in human rights when it was apparently fashionable to engage in rampant anti-Tamil and anti-Kurdish diatribes in a way that would be severely condemned were they to be directed at other groups.

MERCEDES MOYA, of American Association of Jurists, said continuing racial discrimination with its consequent social and economic discrimination posed a moral obligation on NGOs to continue to complain. Such was the case in the Americas, where Governments were violating ILO Convention 169 by denying Afro-Americans their territorial rights, as well as perpetrating or condoning other forms of racial discrimination across the American continent. Ill-treatment, humiliation, verbal abuse and unnecessary suffering where everyday events among Afro-American and indigenous women.

Countries where this took place were Honduras, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, and the United States, all of whom disregarded international norms. In the United States especially, there were flagrant cases of arbitrary detention, and this should be halted immediately.

ALTAF QADRI, of World Muslim Congress, said racial discrimination was repugnant, as it divided humanity. In spite of efforts to eliminate racism, it was on the increase and was increasingly institutionalized. Ethnic cleansing was a new term that had entered the vocabulary of racist terror; the situations of Kosovo and Kashmir were recent examples.

The use of the media -- particularly the electronic media -- to stir racial tensions created serious violations. An examination of the root causes of racism was needed.