Durban Review Summary: August 3, 2008
July 31, 2008, Eye on the UN, Anne Bayefsky
Iran has recently joined Armenia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Egypt as a member of the “Group of Friends of the Chair”. Two meetings have already been held in July 2008 and another is planned in the coming weeks, during which these countries’ representatives “engag[e] in brainstorming and consolidating inputs,” with the aim of formulating the Durban Review Conference’s agenda and final declaration. The group is expected to present its preliminary draft at the ‘Intersessional Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group’ meeting, scheduled for September 1-5, 2008 in Geneva. According to Anne Bayefsky, Editor of EYEontheUN, “the travesty of Durban II as a vehicle for getting serious about combating racism is more obvious than ever, as a regime whose President is a Holocaust-denier acquires an important role in shaping the result […] The authority figures surrounding Durban II remind us once again that this forum is an instrument serving those states bent on defeating human rights not protecting them.”
“Diving into Durban II : What Obama Democrats mean by multilateralism”
August 1, 2008, National Review Online, Anne Bayefsky
The House Committee on Foreign Affairs has recently issued House Resolution 1361, acknowledging the hateful anti-Israeli outcome of the 2001 World Conference Against Racism. Yet, instead of calling on the United States to boycott the Durban Review Conference, like Canada, it has recommended to “adhere to the agreed framework of the 2009 Durban Review Conference and its previously agreed upon goals and parameters and . . . urge Member States of the preparatory committee to return to decisionmaking by consensus.” The document also “call[s] on the President to urge other heads of state to condition participation in the 2009 Durban Review Conference process on concrete action by the United Nations and United Nations Member States to ensure that it and they will reject any effort to inject anti-Semitism, hatred, and discrimination in all its forms onto the agenda of the Conference.” This might represent an advance toward a more concrete American stance with regard to the Durban Review Conference.
August 1, 2008, Europe News, Lizas Welt
Welt takes a cue from French philosopher Pascal Bruckner and expresses skepticism regarding the potential of the Durban Review Conference, organized by the Human Rights Council, to truly combat worldwide racism. Referring to Libya’s and Iran’s leadership roles in preparing for the conference, Welt cites Bruckner who asserts that “Anti-racism in the UN has become the ideology of totalitarian movements meant to advance their own agenda. Dictatorships or notorious half-dictatorships (Libya, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi-Arabia, Algeria, Cuba, Venezuela and so on) adapt to a democratic language and formal legislative standards to counter democracies without questions about themselves.” Welt calls on readers to sign the appeal initiated by Bruckner, to be presented to Germany and other European Union governments on February 15, 2009, asking these states to boycott the Durban Review Conference unless it focuses on “democracy, secularism, and the defense of universal human rights against the intended cultural pluralism meant to defend the Islamic Shari’a against individual freedom.”
