Elements for a general recommendation on racial discrimination in the administration of justice

Jan 1, 2004 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions

Racial discrimination remains a pervasive problem in criminal justice systems. While some countries are starting to recognize the deeply rooted nature of the phenomenon and to compile date in order to counter it, there is still little awareness for it in many countries.

Also, Government reports are often incomplete.

In order to give guidance to States on the issue, a General Recommendation by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is timely and useful.

This paper seeks to gather some ideas of recommendations from national reports, reports of the UN Special Rapporteurs and experts, NGO reports and other material. The recommendations are organized according to the different stages of the criminal justice system: police conduct, courts and prisons. It also gives some elements to be taken into account in more structural manner: access to justice, methods of structural, institutional change and data collection.

CERD Racial discrimination administration of justice-recommendations-eng (full text in English, PDF)