Perspectives on Durban II

Race/Ethnicity interviewed three participants of the Durban Review Conference on issues of human rights and race from an international perspective. The Review Conference, which took place in April 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland, evaluated progress toward the goals set by the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

Roy Brown is a British-born humanist and human rights activist. He is a former president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). The IHEU's mission is to build and represent the global humanist movement that defends human rights and promotes humanist values worldwide. IHEU sponsors the triennial World Humanist Congress. Based in London, IHEU is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) with Special Consultative Status with the UN (New York, Geneva, Vienna), General Consultative Status at UNICEF (New York) and the Council of Europe (Strasbourg), and maintains operational relations with UNESCO (Paris). IHEU has observer status at the African Commission on Human and People's Rights. IHEU currently has more than one hundred member organizations in over forty countries, including the American Humanist Association and their Council for Secular Humanism in the United States.

Camilla Croso is the general coordinator of the Latin American Campaign for the Right to Education, and vice president of the Global Campaign for Education. She integrates the advisory panel of the Right-to-Education Project, an international initiative in favor of the justiciability of the right to education. She graduated from the University of São Paulo in 1994 and received her master's degree in Social Policy and Planning in Developing Countries from the London School of Economics in 1998. Between 2003 and 2007, she coordinated the Education Watch program of Ação Educativa, a key Brazilian NGO, and between 1999 and 2003 coordinated the Brazilian National Campaign for the Right to Education. Croso worked at the Latin American Regional office of the Kellogg Foundation between 1994 and 1997 and has been a consultant at several national and international organizations. She has coordinated the publication of many books and is author of a series of articles and texts in the area of education and rights, the latest being Equality of Ethnic Relations in Schools (2007). In 2000 she integrated, as civil society representative, the committee that elaborated the Dakar Framework for Action at the World Education Forum.

Marco Perolini is the Policy Officer, Human Rights at the European Youth Forum (Youth Forum Jeunesse; YFJ). Independently established by youth organizations, the YFJ is made up of more than ninety national youth councils and international non-governmental youth organizations. It brings together tens of millions of young people from all over Europe to represent their common interests. Representation, internal democracy, independence, openness, and inclusion are among the main principles for the functioning of the European Youth Forum and its member organizations.

Race/Ethnicity: Why did you/your organization attend the Durban Review Conference (Durban II)?

Perolini:

The YFJ participated in the World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and other Forms of Intolerance, which took place in Durban in 2001. On that occasion the YFJ highlighted the need to take further steps to fight against prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination against young people, including young women, by mainstreaming human rights, promoting education, and raising awareness activities and fostering dialogue among different stakeholders.

The commitments undertaken by the international community in 2001 on the occasion of the Durban Conference are key in the fight against racism. However, without an effective implementation, these commitments remain at the level of political declarations without a strong impact on the lives of the victims of racism, discrimination, and intolerance. In this context, it is key that governments convene regularly in order to genuinely assess the advancements and the setbacks in the fight against racism. Civil society organizations should play a role in ensuring that governments fulfill their commitments and in denouncing policies running against these commitments; therefore, the participation of the YFJ responded also to this need.

Brown:

We felt that once most of the "toxic" passages had been removed from the draft outcome document of Durban I, it would...