What is international law’s definition of racial discrimination?
Racial discrimination occurs not simply when differences are made between certain racial groups, but when this differentiation adversely affects the enjoyment of rights otherwise protected by international human rights treaties by members of one group. Racial discrimination occupies a special status within the more general prohibition of arbitrary discriminations. It is worth noting that the European Court of Human Rights, for example, has come close to considering that in some cases racial discrimination, in addition to being a self-standing human rights violation, may as such involve a degrading treatment under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, because a particular form of offence to human dignity is involved.[2] Racial groups should be defined objectively and states should not be allowed to “pick and chose” what is a racial group and what is not for the purposes of CERD. While the Universal Declaration and the ICCPR focused only on race, the CERD prohibits discri
