DUSHANBE, August 7, 2012, Asia-Plus — The 81st session of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) will take place in Geneva from August 6 to August 31.
The Committee will consider periodic reports of Austria, Belize, Ecuador, Fiji, Finland, Liechtenstein, Republic of Korea, Senegal, Tajikistan, and Thailand during the session.
Tajikistan will report on laws, as well as judicial, administrative and other measures adopted to eliminate racial discrimination on August 8-9.
During its eighty-first session, the CERD will hold a day of thematic discussion on racist hate speech in the context of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The discussion will be held on August 28.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A second-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discrimination and the promotion of understanding among all races. Controversially, the Convention also requires its parties to outlaw hate speech and criminalize membership in racist organizations. The Convention also includes an individual complaints mechanism, effectively making it enforceable against its parties. This has led to the development of a limited jurisprudence on the interpretation and implementation of the Convention.
The convention was adopted and opened for signature by the United Nations General Assembly on December 21, 1965, and entered into force on January 4, 1969. As of October 2011, it has 86 signatories and 175 parties.
The Convention is monitored by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is a body of human rights experts tasked with monitoring the implementation of the Convention. It consists of 18 independent human rights experts, elected for four-year terms, with half the members elected every two years. Members are elected by secret ballot of the parties, with each party allowed to nominate one of its nationals to the Committee.
