Pictured at Left: Peter Brown (NLG); Andrea Ritchie and Ajamu Baraka (USHRN); Shawn Stuckey (St. Paul NAACP).

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, more commonly known as ICERD, is an international treaty designed to protect individuals from discrimination based on race, whether that discrimination is intentional, or is the result of seemingly neutral policies.

On February 22, 2008, a two person delegation from Minnesota, consisting of Peter Brown of the National Lawyers Guild and Shawn Stuckey of the St. Paul NAACP, joined a 120 member delegation organized by the US Human Rights Network to counter the report prepared by the US State Department on US compliance with CERD. The Minnesota Delegation presented the Minnesota Shadow Report, a document produced by a wide range of community organizations consisting of a Minnesota-focused, community-based critique of compliance with ICERD.

The large 120 member grassroots U.S. delegation and the 40 member official U.S. government delegation led by one ambassador and eleven high-ranking federal government officials argued the case (compliance v. non-compliance) before an 18 member UN reviewing committee of international human rights law experts in Geneva, Switzerland from 2/18/08 through 2/22/08.

On March 7, 2008, the U.N. reviewing committee issued a fourteen page report containing nearly one page of “Positive Aspects” and over twelve pages of “Concerns and Recommendations”, including 5 items on which it requests a US progress report within 1 year.

Informed observers note a strong correlation (estimated to be approximately 3.7 on a scale of 1 to 5) between the issues raised in the Minnesota Shadow Report and the U.N. panel’s Concluding Observations and Recommendations.

A copy of the report is available at the link below. Contributors include: Rachel Bengtson,Attorney; Rose M. Brewer, Ph.D.; Peter W. Brown, Attorney; Gloria Contreras-Edin, Attorney; Professor Barry C. Feld; Michael Friedman; Edward Goetz, Ph.D.; Larry Hiscock; Maria Iñamagua Campaign for Justice; Minnesota Spokesman Recorder; Anna Pratt; Shawn Stuckey; Jermaine Toney; Professor Michael Tonry; Luke S. Tripp, Ph.D. The report was edited by Peter W. Brown.

For more information or if you have questions, please contact Peter Brown at 612-824-6533.