World Conference against Racism

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The World Conference against Racism (WCAR) are international events organized by the UNESCO in order to struggle against racism ideologies and behaviours. Three conferences have been held so far, in 1978, 1983 and 2001. Founded after World War II and the Holocaust as a dependent body of the United Nations, the UNESCO started as soon as its creation to promote scientific studies concerning ethnic groups and their diffusion in the public opinion in order to dispell pseudo-scientific rationalizations of racism. One of its first published work was The Race Question in 1950, signed by various internationally renowned scholars.

1 1978 conference
2 1983 conference
3 2001 conference
4 See also
5 External link

[edit] 1978 conference

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The 1978 World Conference against Racism was held in Geneva.

[edit] 1983 conference

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The 1983 World Conference against Racism was also held in Geneva.

[edit] 2001 conference

The 2001 conference was held in Durban, South Africa, under UN auspices, from 31 August until 8 September 2001. Former Irish president Mary Robinson, then the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, presided as Secretary-General.

Entitled "World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance," the conference was at discussing unfair treatment of one group against another. Much of the deliberations focused specifically on Israeli treatment of Palestinians, culminating in a controversial resolution equating Zionism with racism.[1][2] The resolution, which was initiated by Arab countries, enjoyed the support of most participants, except western countries. [3]. Both Australia and Canada made statements accusing the conference of "hypocrisy". For example,

"Canada is still here today only because we wanted to have our voice decry the attempts at this Conference to de-legitimize the State of Israel and to dishonor the history and suffering of the Jewish people. We believe, and we have said in the clearest possible terms, that it was inappropriate - wrong - to address the Palestinian-Israel conflict in this forum. We have said, and will continue to say, that anything - any process, any declaration, any language - presented in any forum that does not serve to advance a negotiated peace that will bring security, dignity and respect to the people of the region is - and will be - unacceptable to Canada." ([4], page 119)

It was for this reason that both the United States and Israel pulled their delegations from the WCAR.

Also in the conference, African states demanded a clear apology for the slavery from former slave-trading nations. However, such apology was not written down in the final text, due to the lack of agreement among European nations and America and concern of monetary compensation.[5]