Newsletter - April 2010
Afro-descendents
 On
January 22, 2010, the Department of International
Law organized the first Expert Workshop on People
of African Descent in the Americas. The event
took place in the DIL conference room. The purpose
of the event was to produce a technical-legal
document that could subsequently be used as a
reference by representatives of African-descent
organizations, the political organs of the
inter-American system (including the Working Group
created within the OAS to draft an Inter-American
Convention Against Racism and All Forms of
Discrimination and Intolerance), and other
interested stakeholders.
The workshop was held as part of the project to
include issues of indigenous and African-descent
populations in the policies and programs of the OAS,
which is being implemented by the DIL and includes a
set of activities designed to give greater
visibility to this community in the framework of the
Organization and the inter-American system in
general.
Recognized experts on the subject from different
countries of the region participated in the
workshop, including professors Pastor Murillo (an
independent expert of the United Nations Committee
for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination);
Robert Cottrol (George Washington University); Tanya
Katerí Hernández (Fordham University); Hédio Silva
Júnior (Centro de Estudios de Relaciones de Trabajo
y Desigualdades – CEERT); Carlos Quesada (Global
Rights Partners for Justice); Judith Morrison
(Inter-American Development Bank); Celina Romany
(Celina Romany law firm); and M’baré N’gom (Morgan
State University).
The workshop covered several topics, such as
affirmative action, civil responsibility for acts of
racial discrimination, reversal of the burden of
proof in acts of discrimination, and “hate speech.”
The final document is being prepared and should be
distributed in the next few weeks.
In addition, the DIL helped organize and
participated in the subregional workshop for the
Andean region on “Participation and effect of
Afro-descendents in the OAS.” The event took
place at the Hotel Señorial in Lima, Peru, on March
23 and 24, 2010, and was co-sponsored by Global
Rights Partners for Justice and the Centro de
Desarrollo de la Mujer Negra Peruana [Center for
Development of Peruvian Black Women].
The purpose of the workshop was to inform
representatives of African descent about the work of
the OAS in preparation for the General Assembly to
be held in Lima in June of next year. The DIL made
it possible for several representatives of
Afro-descendent organizations to participate in the
forum.
On the same occasion, the Director of the Department
of International Law made a presentation on the
DIL’s technical assistance to the Working Group to
Prepare the Draft Inter-American Convention against
Racism and All Forms of Discrimination and
Intolerance.
The DIL support for this event was in the context of
the Department’s project for the inclusion of the
Afro-descendent topic in the programs and policies
of the OAS.
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