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Durban Review Conference: Bad Call by Obama

David Gespass is the president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild and co-chair of its International Committee.

Writing on truthout.org. in "What Change? US Refuses to Participate in World Conference Against Discrimination" he rightly admonishes the Obama Administration for not going to the upcoming Durban Review Conference. The signal to the world is wrong he says.

"For those of us who were in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 for the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, the decision of the United States to leave before the conclusion was disheartening, but not surprising. The Clinton administration had given little support to the conference and the Bush administration appeared downright hostile to its goals. There were two issues in particular the US did not want on the agenda. One was that of reparations for the slave trade and the other was the plight of the Palestinian people. While the US withdrawal was predicated on the latter, it remains an open question how much of a role each played in its decision.

Nearly eight years have gone by, a new US administration has promised change and greater engagement with the international community. One would think, therefore, that administration would seize the opportunity to participate in the Durban Review Conference next month in Geneva as the perfect opportunity to distinguish itself from the past. Sad to say, that is not the case. This time, the US is not going to leave in the middle of the conference. It will be absent from the start, having decided that "current text of the draft outcome document is not salvageable." The administration criticizes the original Durban Declaration and Program of Action and claims that the draft for the upcoming conference compounds its flaws. It specifically expresses concern that no one country (meaning Israel) should be singled out for criticism and that the document should go no further on reparations than did the Durban declaration. The Durban declaration called for Palestinian self-determination, for a lasting and just peace in the region and recognized the slave trade as criminal, calling for appropriate measures to reverse its consequences."

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