met annually in Geneva to discuss a wide variety of human rights issues.3 Given the political imperatives of the day arising from the apartheid regime in South Africa, the first treaty to be agreed, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, dealt with the specific phenomenon of racial discrimination. It was adopted by the General Assembly in December 1965. After defining racial discrimination, the Convention sets out in six detailed articles the obligations of State parties to combat this scourge. As well as the obvious requirements that the State itself, at all levels, must refrain from such acts, the Convention also requires a State to take appropriate measures What is racial discrimination? against racial discrimination rooted “Any distinction, exclusion, restriction in society, including the propagaor preference based on race, colour, tion of racist ideas advocated by descent, or national or ethnic origin groups and organizations. The which has the purpose or effect of nulConvention also sets out an exlifying or impairing the recognition, entensive series of specific human joyment or exercise, on an equal footrights—in the civil and political and ing, of human rights and fundamental in the economic, social and cultural freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public spheres, most of which are enumerlife” (art. 1). ated in the Declaration—that must be guaranteed without distinction on racial grounds. Finally, the Convention establishes as a basic right an effective remedy, whether through the courts or other institutions, against acts of racial discrimination. The Convention, in part II, requires all State parties to report periodically to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the measures they have taken to give effect to the Convention. Under article 14, States may also choose to recognize the Committee’s competence to consider complaints from individuals, while a system of inter-State complaints is set out in articles 11, 12 and 13. C. International Bill of Human Rights As the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was being agreed, negotiations were continuing on two other major treaties: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The process of drafting a legally binding instrument enshrining the rights of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had started immediately after The Commission has since been replaced by the Human Rights Council, which meets three times a year (General Assembly resolution 60/251). 3 6