Race
Declaration May Lose Symbolism
Wednesday September 5 3:05 AM ET
By CHRIS TOMLINSON, Associated Press Writer
DURBAN, South Africa (AP) - It's not an international treaty. It's not a U.N. resolution. In fact, it's not a legal document of any kind and nations are free to ignore it completely. But the final declaration to be adopted by the world conference against racism is supposed to carry enormous symbolism and set an informal standard by which citizens can demand change in their own countries. If successful, the conference could be the first step on a long road to new international law, experts said Tuesday.
``You start with a principle, you turn it into a declaration and program of action, then there is an affirmation by governments to take those commitments seriously,'' said Michael Posner, executive director of the New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. ``Then you start passing treaties and laws that are binding.'' Despite such high hopes, the impact of this conference could be fleeting after the United States and Israel withdrew because of disputes over the wording of the final declaration, which singled out Israel for criticism.
Similar language was one reason both countries boycotted racism summits in 1978 and 1983, and the declarations and programs of action from those conferences have been lost in obscurity, he said. ``The U.S. withdrawal is an enormous blow, and it certainly undermines the effect of the final document,'' he said. ``If a solid consensus document emerges that the Europeans can endorse, it can still have some positive influence ... but it's not at all clear at this moment that that is going to happen.''
The gathering is breaking new ground by asking governments to address - for the first time in an international forum - discrimination in their home countries, xenophobia and the historical legacy of racism, conference spokeswoman Sue Markham said. ``It's a pledge of intent (to deal with racism),'' Markham said. For the first time, private human rights groups have also had a chance to participate in a U.N. conference on racism.
The meeting in the coastal city of Durban comes after three years and tens of millions of dollars spent on preparatory conferences. The groups lobbying at the conference include African Americans seeking reparations for slavery, Roma - also known as Gypsies - seeking a guarantee of their rights in Europe and members of lower castes in South Asia demanding recognition of the discrimination they suffer.
All hope a single paragraph in the final declaration will lend greater legitimacy to their causes. Palestinians and their Arab allies fought for the condemnation of Israel and Zionism. The final draft of the declaration, a 36-page document, has 142 paragraphs, with five focused on the Palestinians.
When that language was not dropped, the United States and Israel withdrew their delegations. The European Union and South Africa sought to salvage the conference Tuesday by adopting language that does not specifically criticize Israel or Zionism. Procedurally, if delegates can't reach a consensus, governments can accept the document while rejecting specific sections, Markham said.
Claudio Cordone, representing human rights group Amnesty International, said the conference remains important for its potential effect, should the declaration be adopted by most countries.``Racism isn't only about genocide. Racism expresses itself in subtle forms everyday in people's lives,'' Cordone said.
"This document addresses these issues of daily life more than people know.'' A second document to be considered at the conference, a 65-page program of action, proposes ways for governments to fight racism with education, affirmative action and equal rights legislation. When adopting the two documents, governments morally commit themselves to them, though they are not legally binding.
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