Aug. 21, 2001

CONTACTS: Lindsay Jones, research fellow
612-625-6512

Ken Bechtel, office manager
612-625-8071

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

INSTITUTE ON RACE & POVERTY TO SPONSOR SYMPOSIUM
DURING U.N. CONFERENCE ON RACISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

Minneapolis, MN - The Institute on Race & Poverty (IRP) is sending a delegation of staff members and researchers to the U.N. Conference on Racism , which will take place in Durban, South Africa. They will attend a Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) Forum, starting on Aug. 28. The formal World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophopia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) will begin on Aug. 31 and conclude on Sept. 7.

IRP will participate in the conference by sponsoring a symposium on the importance of developing universal measures of racism. "Although the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is designed to remedy the role that racial discrimination plays in denying racial minorities their fundamental human rights, the effectiveness of the Convention has been limited by, among other things, the lack of universal measures of racism to guide the implementation of its mandates," according to john a. powell, IRP executive director.

"This lack of standards for assessing States' performance in meeting the mandates of ICERD has in turn contributed to a lack of accountability on the part of signatory countries." The IRP symposium will discuss the role of universal standards and the collection of uniform measures in strengthening compliance with ICERD, the means by which such measures might be developed and taken, and the utility of uniform measures in addressing racism both within the structures of ICERD and in the context of advocating against racism in general.

Some of the questions, the IRP symposium will explore include:

1. What is the relationship between developing uniform measures of the race and poverty intersect, and improving compliance with ICERD?

2. To what extent does the Programme of Action sufficiently address accountability, and what further strategies should be pursued?

3. What are some strategies for CERD, governments, and NGOs to consider during and after the implementation of the accountability measures to effectively monitor international and intra-national efforts to eliminate racial discrimination?

4. Where do we go from here; post-Durban strategies?

IRP staff members can be contacted in Durban via email and cellular telephone. Contact Ken Bechtel at 612-625-8071 for further information.

The Institute on Race & Poverty (IRP) was founded by john a. powell in 1993 at the University of Minnesota Law School to address issues and problems created by the intersections of racism and poverty. powell is a former national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union and is currently the Earl R. Larson Chair of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. For more information, look under "Current Events" on he IRP Web site is located at www.umn.edu/irp.