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How is our work influencing life in Northern Ireland and delivering equality? Learn more about our policy, legal and research work.
 
 

UNCERD

UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination
International Mechanisms

What you need to know

 

UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)CERD logo


While the Equality Commission does not have a formal role with regards to CERD, we have sought to input into the examination process and to influence locally, nationally and at the international level.
 

Equality Commission Recommendations

The Equality Commission’s Shadow Report (pdf, 2024) identified a number of critical issues of the UK's compliance with respect to the following key articles of the Convention:
 

  • The Convention in domestic law and the institutional and policy framework for its implementation (Articles 1 and 2)
  • Racist hate crime (Article 5)
  • Situation of national or ethnic minorities (Articles 2-7)
  • Situation of migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and stateless persons (Articles 2 and 5)
 
We urge the Committee to support our calls to see the completion and delivery of priority outputs including:
 
  • Reform of Race Equality Law
  • A new Racial Equality Strategy
  • Ethnic Equality Monitoring to improve public service delivery
  • Hate Crime Legislation
  • Refugee Integration, including via a dedicated Strategy

Read more about our Race policy priorities and recommendations

CERD Concluding Observations 2016

In August 2016, the CERD Committee published its Concluding Observations on the UK (pdf). Several of its observations and recommendations specifically referenced Northern Ireland and echoed the concerns raised by the Commission as part of our engagement with the Committee. For example, the Committee:
 
  • called on the Executive to adopt ‘comprehensive’ anti-discrimination legislation ‘without further delay’
  • raised concerns that data is not collected systematically in all fields ‘most notably in Northern Ireland’ and called on the Executive to publish disaggregated data on the enjoyment of rights by members of ethnic minorities and monitor the impact of its actions
  • called on the UK State Party to adopting a detailed action plan with concrete targets, monitoring mechanisms and sufficient resources
  • called on Government to take forward a range of actions to address issues of underreporting and tackle racist hate crime and racist hate speech
  • raised concerns that the situation of Gypsies, Travellers and Roma has ‘not substantially improved’ and called for Government to develop a comprehensive Strategy in consultation with these communities.
 

Previous shadow reports

 
 

 
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