FX 19 – Taking concrete steps to reduce polarization at the Human Rights Council: locating common ground on racial discrimination and intolerance

At a time of increasing polarisation at the Human Rights Council it has never been more important for States to sit down and find common solutions to critical human rights concerns that have long divided States in Room XX but that should, in principle, unite them in common cause.

Amongst those concerns, international efforts to fight racial discrimination and intolerance stands out, as the difficulties do not necessarily seem to be directly related to the subject matter.

This also raises the question of whether a compromise is possible. In order to seize the opportunity, which would bring benefits to the Council and to the fulfilment, through cooperation and dialogue, of the entirety of its mandate, delegations must approach the issue afresh, better understand and empathise with each other’s concerns, and have the political courage to depart from long-standing positions.

Against this background, the dialogue will consider the following questions:

1. Regarding the resolutions on ‘From rhetoric to reality: a global call for concrete action against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,’ is it possible, in the short term, to identify language or content fixes to help facilitate consensus in the short-term? For example, only including references to the DDPA in the resolutions and not the wider Durban process?
2. In the medium term, is it possible for States at the Council to come together to find a ‘common path’ – ‘a new approach […] that focuses on what we are all individually and collectively going to do to combat the scourge that is modern-day racism’?
3. What might such a ‘new approach’ look like?