U.S. "Race Relations" Under UN Scrutiny.

In October 1994, the U.S. Senate ratified the UN's International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which had been signed by the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966. In early August of this year, as the UN prepared for the grandly titled "World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance" (or WCARRDXRI), the world body's Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination summoned the U.S. government to make an accounting for race relations in our country. The Bush administration meekly complied.

Representing the administration, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Ralph Boyd and Assistant Secretary of State Lorne Craner "reiterated U.S. policy of condemning unequal treatment of racial and ethnic minorities," reported an August 6th Reuters wire service story. Although the UN Committee itself withheld comment pending the release of its official report, members of UN-aligned radical non-governmental organizations (NGOs), who were on hand to witness the exchange, insisted that America's domestic laws and policies must be altered to conform to our supposed obligations under the CERD treaty.

"[The Bush administration] simply restated a position which already doesn't comply with the CERD and which indicates no willingness to comply' groused Erika George of Human Rights Watch. Nancy Chang of the Center for Constitutional Rights reported: "Almost every member of the [UN] committee raised the question of why there are vast disparities with respect to race in every aspect of American life -- education, housing, health, welfare, criminal justice."

According to Boyd, the Bush administration wants "to do as much as we can to facilitate and advance the constructive dialogue between this committee and [the U.S.] delegation" to the UN's WCARRDXRI summit, which will take place in Durban, South Africa, in late August. Accommodating the UN's CERD committee -- which includes 18 "experts" drawn from such havens of tolerance as Communist China, Egypt, and Romania -- may prove to be quite a task, as Australia learned a few years ago. The Committee saw fit to censure the Australian government for its treatment of that nation's aboriginal peoples. As a result, Australia announced that it would no longer submit to the panel's scrutiny. (See the "Insider Report" item "UN Pushes Australia Too Far" in the May 8, 2000 issue of TNA.)