A/HRC/27/68 majority of those who had participated in the session had supported the work of the Working Group. She also briefed the meeting on the thirteenth session of the Working Group, which had been an internal meeting in which it had dealt with communications, future work, country visits and meetings with various stakeholders and units of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). 14. The Chair-Rapporteur briefed participants on the country visit of the Working Group to Brazil from 3 to 13 December 2013. At the end of the visit, the Working Group had released press statements, which were available on the OHCHR website.1 The experts thanked the Government of Brazil for its invitation and for its assistance before, during and after the visit. The Chair also thanked the representatives of NGOs and the people of African descent with whom the Working Group had met during the visit. She said that the detailed reports of the mission would be made available to the public following their submission to the Human Rights Council at its twenty-seventh session. 15. Yury Boychenko, Chief of the Anti-Discrimination Section of OHCHR, provided an update on the International Decade for People of African Descent and informed the session of two resolutions that had been adopted by the General Assembly, namely resolution 68/151 and resolution 68/237. In resolution 68/237, the General Assembly had proclaimed the International Decade for People of African Descent, commencing on 1 January 2015 and ending on 31 December 2024, with the theme “People of African descent: recognition, justice and development”, to be officially launched immediately following the general debate of the sixty-ninth session of the Assembly. Mr. Boychenko added that the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, which would prepare the programme of activities for the International Decade, would report to the Human Rights Council at its twenty-sixth session in June 2014 and its written report would be then be submitted to the General Assembly. 16. The representatives of Austria, Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico, South Africa, Switzerland, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) and the European Union congratulated the Working Group on its work. IV. Summary of deliberations Thematic analysis: access to justice 17. Anthony Bogues, Professor of Social Sciences and Critical Theory and Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States of America, made a presentation entitled “The arch of justice bends towards equality: reflections on Africa and African Diaspora today”. He began by stating that people of African descent were currently living in a post-colonial, post-slavery, postapartheid and post-civil rights historical moment, and in more complicated contexts which were not necessarily limited to colour lines only. He provided country contexts of the situation of people of African descent, highlighting the economic inequalities, discrimination in the criminal justice system and prevalence of poverty and inequality faced by people of African descent in different parts of the world. Given the overall situation of inequities faced by people of African descent, he argued that it was important to raise questions about justice and its relationship to equality. He added that the detachment of 1 See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14159&LangID=E and www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14161&LangID=E. 5