Civilrights.org

This year to commemorate World Refugee Day, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is urging wealthy nations to contribute more resources to organizations that help refugees around the world, who are facing challenges in their work because of the current global recession.   

"The overwhelming burden of displacement is borne by developing countries," said António Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "Eighty percent of refugees are in the developing world. Generosity and wealth are not proportional to each other."

A refugee is a person seeking protection in a foreign country out of fear of political persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.  According to UNHCR, there are more than 16 million refugees and asylum seekers worldwide, many of whom are women and children. 

UNHCR works to protect refugee rights, resolve refugee problems worldwide, and ensure that everyone can seek asylum and find safe refuge in another country.  In 2000, UNHCR established June 20 as World Refugee Day, to raise awareness about the plight of refugees and salute their determination and courage.  The date was selected to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, an international U.N. treaty that defined who is a refugee and what their rights are.

On Tuesday, the United States won a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council.  

Each of the 47 members of the council is not only responsible for promoting human rights abroad, but they are also responsible for setting a high standard for human rights in their own countries. In support of its candidacy, the U.S. pledged to promote "human rights and fundamental freedoms of all persons within the United States."

Civil and human rights advocates saw the U.S.' decision to join the council as an opportunity for the Obama administration to embrace human rights principles and address certain issues, like racial profiling, life sentences without parole for juveniles, Katrina recovery. Many of those same recommendations were echoed in a recent U.N. report on U.S. race relations and human rights (PDF).  

In 2008, human rights scholar Catherine Powell recommended that the incoming administration put together a working group of experts and senior officials from various federal agencies including the departments of Justice, State, Defense, Homeland Security and others to ensure greater integration of human rights principles in domestic policy. Such a group could be created by an executive order by the president.

Earlier this year, LCCREF issued a report calling for Congress to broaden the mandate of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights so that it could monitor compliance with international human rights treaties on the federal, state, and local level.

As part of its pursuit of a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, the United States this week released a document pledging its commitment to advancing human rights in the U.S. and abroad. U.N. member states seeking a seat on the council are encouraged to submit a human rights pledge document as part of their candidacy.

In addition to pledging to help combat human trafficking and help reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, the Obama administration promised to push for Congress to ratify several international human rights treaties, most notably, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The treaty calls for equal pay, maternity benefits, repealing all laws discriminating against women, and establishing institutions dedicated to promoting gender equality. Although President Carter signed the treaty in 1980, ratification requires a two-thirds majority vote by the Senate, which has not yet been achieved.

The administration also pledged to honor existing treaty obligations banning racial discrimination and to vigorously enforce the American with Disabilities Act.

The U.N. General Assembly will elect 47 members to the Human Rights Council on May 15.

The Human Rights Commitments and Pledges of the United States of America (PDF)

Delegates from more than 100 United Nations (U.N.) member nations met in Geneva, Switzerland, this week to discuss strategies for eradicating racism. The Durban Review Conference (Durban II) is a follow-up to the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which was held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa.

After months of contentious negotiations, the conference's organizing committee reached an agreement Tuesday on a final resolution outlining how U.N. member states can eradicate racism. The resolution, which represents a broad consensus on how to tackle racism and related forms of intolerance around the world, will be formally adopted by the full conference on Friday.

Recommendations in the resolution include:

• aggressively investigating hate crimes;
• affirming the right to organize for native-born and migrant workers alike;
• encouraging governments to embrace equal opportunity programs;
• calling for the ratification of other U.N. social justice treaties; and
• establishing independent national human rights bodies that would launch investigations, make policy proposals, and monitor compliance with human rights treaties and domestic law.

In an effort to better track its own demographic shifts and combat racial discrimination, France will consider conducting a national census that will account for race and ethnicity for the first time.

In France, unlike the U.S. and the U.K., it is illegal for the government to classify people by race, ethnicity, and religion, though it does make distinctions among native and foreign-born French citizens and noncitizen foreigners.

Yazid Sabeg, a close advisor to French President Nicholas Sarkozy, is leading an effort to change that policy. Sabeg recently told the BBC that data collection on minorities in France is "essential to measure how effective are official policies combating discrimination."

But opponents say that the plan would violate basic ideals of equality and conjures up memories of Nazi-generated lists used to exterminate millions of Jews during World War II.

Sabeg says that it's important to recognize how France has transformed. "People find it hard to look the reality of this country in the face, which is that the population of the country has changed," Sabeg said.

In 2005, riots in suburban Paris made international headlines and highlighted rampant unemployment, improper policing, and housing problems among second- and third-generation immigrant youth that many attributed to institutional discrimination.

The U.S. census does collect data on race and ethnicity.  Census data is used to track racial disparities in employment, homeownership, and health care, which helps the federal government distribute funds to communities as needed and enforce civil rights laws against discrimination like the Voting Rights Act.   

The next U.S. census will take place in April 2010.