A/HRC/54/71
I. Introduction
1.
The present report is submitted in accordance with paragraph 13 of Human Rights
Council resolution 51/32, in which the Council requested the Working Group of Experts on
People of African Descent to submit a report to the Council at its fifty-fourth session,
reviewing the work it had carried out in the 20 years since its establishment and including
conclusions and recommendations on how to address more efficiently the human rights
concerns of people of African descent.
2.
In preparation for the report, stakeholders were asked to share relevant updates,
including specific examples, stemming directly or indirectly from the work of the Working
Group, including the implementation of thematic or country-specific recommendations.1 In
addition, the Working Group conducted online consultations with civil society organizations,
national human rights institutions and former members of the Working Group.
3.
The Working Group would like to thank Australia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guyana,
Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands (Kingdom of the), Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland and Trinidad and Tobago for their input. It also thanks the European
Anti-Poverty Network, the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly –
Guyana, Ilex Acción Jurídica, the Racial Justice and Law Centre of the Getúlio Vargas
Foundation São Paulo Law School, the International Association against Torture, the
Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission jointly with Victoria
University, AI for the People and the City of Cologne, Germany. Annex I to the present report
contains a summary of all contributions.
II. Promise of the Durban Declaration and Programme of
Action: establishment and evolution of the mandate
4.
In the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted in 2001 at the World
Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, the
international community recognized the transatlantic slave trade and trafficking in enslaved
Africans as a tragedy and a crime against humanity. It highlighted the ways in which the
barbarism, magnitude and organized nature of the triangular trade had also demanded the
systematic dehumanization of Africans and people of African descent. 2 Despite their
significant contributions even while enslaved, Africans and people of African descent have
suffered from long-term, ongoing racial inequality due to extractive policies, barriers to
migration and the normalizing of atrocity. In many countries, extractive policies persist, even
as the countries’ wealth can be traced to the exploitation of the labour, resources and
innovation of Africans and people of African descent.
5.
Today, amid persistent social and economic inequalities across regions and borders,
Africans and people of African descent continue to experience the systemic impact of
colonialism and its consequences. The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action
acknowledged the social biases and discrimination prevailing in public and private
institutions against Africans and people of African descent and sought to reclaim the promise
of the recognition of their rights to culture, identity, civic, economic and cultural
participation, self-determination, development and the use, enjoyment and conservation of
natural resources. 3 The Programme of Action included a request to the Commission on
Human Rights to consider establishing a mechanism to study the racial discrimination faced
by people of African descent.4
6.
The Working Group was established by the Commission on Human Rights on
25 April 2002 pursuant to its resolution 2002/68 on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia
and related intolerance. Its establishment was part of a strategy for the comprehensive
1
2
3
4
2
See https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2023/report-un-working-group-experts-people-africandescent-reviewing-20-years-work.
Durban Declaration, para. 13.
Ibid., paras. 34 and 35.
Programme of Action, para. 7.
GE.23-15301