A/76/434 international law and institutions. 11 Although rarely treated as such, the Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order, adopted in 1974, and the Declaration on the Right to Development, adopted in 1986, for example, are instrumental pillars for combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. Through these instruments, the Assembly recognized and condemned racial domination rooted in colonialism as part of their call for international economic and political equity. 12 20. The Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development has recently highlighted that racial discrimination directly affects development at national and international levels: “On an international level, racism and racial discrimination can result in the deprivation of transnational economic opportunities for individuals and of foreign direct investment and relief from debt for poor countries.” 13 21. The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action is a central pillar of the broader anti-racism and decolonial framework referenced above. The General Assembly’s mandate for the Conference – which was the third world conference against racism – was sweeping. In that mandate, Member States set out several objectives, including calls to review the political, historical, economic, social, cultural and other factors leading to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and to formulate concrete recommendations to further actionoriented national, regional and international measures (Assembly resolution 52/111, para. 28). The specific invocation of historical factors was a significant break from earlier resolutions containing calls for a conference and in which only contemporary manifestations of racism had been emphasized. 14 22. Unlike prior world conferences, which had largely failed to include civil society, the Conference held in 2001 was dominated by broad particip ation of civil society actors from the beginning. 15 The eventual choice to hold it in Durban, South Africa, rather than Geneva contributed to that accessibility, as it moved the locus of efforts out of Europe and to a venue with deep symbolic importance for the global anti-racism movement – and for people of African descent specifically. 23. The Conference itself saw widespread buy-in from States, United Nations entities and non-governmental actors. More than 4,000 representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were accredited to participate in the official conference, and the parallel NGO Forum, also held in Durban, hosted more than 7,000 representatives. In all, 163 States were represented, with 16 Heads of State, 58 foreign ministers and 2,300 other delegates. Altogether, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) estimated that 18,800 people had assembled in Durban to participate in the Conference. 16 24. Of course, the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action i s not the final word on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. But it is a __________________ 11 12 13 14 15 16 8/26 Steven L. B. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights (Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 54 –56. Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order, paras. 1 and 4 (h) –(i); and Declaration on the Right to Development, art. 5. A/HRC/EMRTD/3/CRP.2, para. 9. Available at www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Development/ EMD/Session3/A_HRC_EMRTD_3_CRP.2.pdf. J. A. Lindgren Alves, “The Durban conference against racism and everyone’s responsibilities”, University of San Francisco Law Review, vol. 37, No. 4 (2002), pp. 978–979. Accredited non-governmental organizations “were able to participate in virtually all of the preparatory processes as observers, offering them important political opportunities to encourage States to include civil society recommendations in the draft texts”. Corinne Lennox, “Reviewing Durban: examining the outputs and review of the 2001 World Conferen ce against Racism”, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 27, No. 2 (June 2009), p. 199. Ibid., p. 200. 21-15325