Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
105th session
Summary record of the first part (public)* of the 2836th meeting
Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, on Monday, 15 November 2021, at 10 a.m.
Chair:Ms. Li
Contents
Opening of the session
Adoption of the agenda
The meeting was called to order at 10.05 a.m.
Opening of the session
1.The Chair declared open the 105th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
2.Mr. Cissé-Gouro (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)) said that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic was still negatively affecting populations across the globe. While the development of vaccines against the coronavirus was a significant step forward, the distribution of such vaccines was far from fair or inclusive, and the pandemic still posed challenges with regard to the unequal treatment of the most vulnerable persons, including indigenous peoples, persons of African descent, persons of Asian descent, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, as reflected by the Committee in its recent statements. He trusted that the Committee would continue its important work on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to racial discrimination as the health crisis continued.
3.Beyond the pandemic, the world faced many challenges of direct concern to the Committee. Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in search of a better and more sustainable existence faced not only trafficking, considerable hardship and rejection, but also racial, religious and other forms of discrimination. The international community, including the Committee, had a role to play in reminding States of their obligations under international human rights law in that regard. The early warning and urgent action procedure was a useful tool for addressing such situations, and OHCHR stood ready to assist the Committee in its forthcoming review of the procedure.
4.The ongoing digital shift offered great potential to humanity but also presented considerable human rights challenges. Those left out risked being trapped in exclusion, poverty and inequality, a situation often exacerbated by racial discrimination. New technology could in some circumstances work against certain segments of the population, as exemplified by the discriminatory outcomes of algorithmic profiling based on racial stereotypes, which was addressed by the Committee in its general recommendation No. 36 (2020) on preventing and combating racial profiling by law enforcement officials (CERD/C/GC/36). In October 2021, OHCHR and the French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights had organized a seminar to raise awareness of general recommendation No. 36 (2020). Further seminars were planned for 2022.
5.At its forty-eighth session, the Human Rights Council had taken action on the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the promotion and protection of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Africans and of people of African descent against excessive use of force and other human rights violations by law enforcement officers (A/HRC/47/53) and the agenda towards transformative change for racial justice and equality, mandating its President to appoint independent experts to an international mechanism tasked with examining the situation in that regard. He encouraged the Committee to schedule a meeting with the new mechanism, once established. At the same session, the Human Rights Council had adopted resolution 48/1, in which it condemned the resurgence of violent forms of racism precipitated by socially unjust and dangerous extremist nationalist and populist ideologies and stressed the paramount importance of universal adherence to the Convention, including the individual communications procedure.
6.He paid tribute to the outgoing members of the Committee, namely Mr. Albuquerque e Silva, Mr. Bossuyt, Ms. Izsák-Ndiaye and Ms. Ko, for their significant contributions to the Committee’s work and to global efforts to combat racial discrimination.
Adoption of the agenda ( CERD/C/105/1 )
7.The Chair said that the review of the reports of Bahrain and the Plurinational State of Bolivia under article 9 of the Convention had been postponed; the Committee would consider the reports of Chile, Denmark, Singapore, Switzerland and Thailand at the current session. She took it that the Committee wished to amend the annotated provisional agenda (CERD/C/105/1) accordingly.
8. The agenda, as amended, was adopted.
The public part of the meeting rose at 10.15 a.m.