International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)

The US Human Rights Network CERD Project

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, (ICERD, or more commonly, CERD), is an international treaty designed to protect individuals from discrimination based on race, whether that discrimination is intentional, or is the result of seemingly neutral policies. The United States ratified CERD in 1994 and is therefore bound by all provisions of the treaty, which includes a periodic compliance review conducted by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The USHRN CERD Project was created to ensure that the committee’s review, which took place in Geneva in February 2008, included full and accurate information about the current human rights situation in the U.S. beyond the formal report submitted by the U.S. government. The project’s key initial objective was to coordinate the production of a comprehensive shadow report that was presented to the committee during the review process. Many of the findings in the shadow report were directly reflected in the committee’s Concluding Observations.

Throughout 2008, the CERD Project monitored the U.S. response to the concerns listed in the Concluding Observations in preparation for the U.S. government’s one-year follow-up report to the committee, which was submitted in January 2009. The Network coordinated a response the U.S. follow-up report that the CERD committee received in June; other Network members submitted responses directly to the committee, also in June (see “Current CERD Process Reports” section in “Related links” below). Additional follow-up activities coordinated by the Network’s CERD Task Force are planned throughout the year.

Other CERD Project objectives include demonstrating the effectiveness of using an international human rights procedure to advance domestic advocacy agendas; educating the public about the human rights framework, particularly with regard to U.S. obligations to combat racial discrimination; increasing the capacity of domestic human rights and social justice organizations to use CERD and other treaties as well as the human rights framework to inform their advocacy; and strengthening the domestic human rights movement overall to better influence U.S. policy.

Related links includes additional documents related to recent CERD shadow reporting efforts, information about previous CERD shadow reporting activities, and CERD introductory and additional educational resources.

For more information on the USHRN CERD Project, please contact Kali Akuno at kakuno@ushrnetwork.org.

CERD links

U.S. Proposes Action Plan to Combat Racial and Religious Discrimination and Intolerance, The United States participated actively in the recent October 19 – 30, 2009 meeting of the Human Rights Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Complementary Standards, and is profoundly aware of the destructive consequences of racial and religious intolerance.

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

Introduction to CERD and Shadow Reporting

USHRN Shadow Reporting Primer
ACLU CERD FAQ
Human Rights Project CERD FAQ
Rights Working Group CERD FAQ
2007 Human Rights Project CERD Shadow Reporting Toolkit

Current CERD Process Reports

2007 U.S. Government CERD Report

Human Rights Project Summary of 2007 U.S. Government CERD Report
ACLU Preliminary Analysis of 2007 U.S. Government CERD Report
2008 CERD Shadow Report
2008 Center on Housing Rights and Evictions Shadow Report
March 2008 CERD Committee Concluding Observations
Summary of June 2008 CERD Project East Coast Strategy Session
January 2009 One-year U.S. Government Follow-up Report
June 2009 ACLU/Rights Working Group Response to U.S. One-year Follow-up Report
June 2009 Human Rights Project Memo on U.S. One-year Follow-up Report
June 2009 National Day Labor Organizing Network on U.S. One-year Follow-up Report
March 2009 Annotated Bibliography of CERD Reports and Publications