E/CN.4/2001/21 page 19 even said to Gupta that this Saturday is for ‘Whites only’. Italian Giuseppe Salome and his brother were also denied entry to the restaurant for the same reason” (see the newsletter of the Oslo Anti-Racist Centre Samora, No. 2, 2000). C. Discriminatory application of the death penalty 39. In a memorandum addressed on 14 November 2000 to President Clinton, Amnesty International denounced the discriminatory application of the death penalty and reported several cases in support of its appeal for the death sentence to be abolished in the United States of America. On 12 September 2000, a study by the United States Department of Justice revealed disturbing statistical evidence of widespread racial and geographical disparities in the application of the federal death penalty. As at the state level, there is strong evidence that it is not only the severity of the crime which determines whether a defendant lives or dies, but where he is prosecuted and, quite possibly, the colour of the defendant’s skin. Several examples are given in the Amnesty Memorandum: (a) In the Eastern District of Virginia, of the 21 cases in which the death penalty was recommended, 20 of the defendants were African Americans and one was Hispanic. Federal prosecutors recommended that the death penalty not be sought in all five cases submitted in which the defendant was white. Four of the 21 inmates currently under sentence of death were prosecuted in the Eastern District of Virginia. All four are black. (b) In the Northern District of Texas, federal prosecutors submitted a total of 10 cases, recommending pursuit of the death penalty in six of them. The defendants in the 10 submitted cases included four whites, four blacks and two Hispanics. However, prosecutors recommended the death penalty for 25 per cent of the white defendants (one out of four), 75 per cent of the African American defendants (three out of four) and 100 per cent of the Hispanic defendants (two out of two). Amnesty International’s memorandum continues: “The role of racial bias in the administration of justice has been the subject of extensive and often controversial research in the USA. Numerous studies have found empirical evidence of disparate treatment of criminal defendants on the basis of race or ethnicity. Many social scientists have concluded that, when compared to white defendants, minority groups face a greater likelihood of imprisonment and serve longer sentences for identical offences. For example, a recent study of the juvenile justice system, sponsored by the United States Justice Department and six of the country’s leading foundations, concluded: ‘While “Equal Justice Under Law” is the foundation of our legal system, and is carved on the front of the United States Supreme Court, the juvenile justice system is anything but equal. Throughout the system, minority youth - especially African American youth - receive different and harsher treatment. This is true when white youth and minority youth are charged with similar offences.’” (Eileen Poe-Yamagata and Michael A. Jones, And Justice for some: Differential treatment of minority youth in judicial system, National Council of Crime and Delinquency, April 2000). 40. In 1998, the Presidential Advisory Board on Race recognized that discrepancies in incarceration rates could not be explained solely by the higher crime rates in minority communities: “These disparities are probably due in part to underlying disparities in criminal