Learn With Lena : Book Tips from our Librarian

An article by Lena Olsson, Raoul Wallenberg Institute Human Rights Librarian, 09.04.2021

Read this article to know more about Lena's reading suggestions on Identity, Dignity & Democracy in relation with racial discrimination.

Will European countries ever take meaningful steps to end colonial legacies?

An article by Michael McEachrane, Raoul Wallenberg Visiting Researcher, 03.03.2021

"[T]he EU has some way to go to fully recognise, let alone address, the structural legacies of colonialism – for example, the racial dividing lines between white people and people of colour within the EU. In all major areas of society across the EU, people of colour tend to be the most discriminated against. Yet, speaking of race and differences between white people and people of colour is not part of the political and legal discourse in the EU".

Rights to Lands, Participation and Consultation of Indigenous Peoples

A summary of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ Judicial Interpretation, 2016

Alejandro Fuentes, Doctor of Law, Senior Researcher, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

"This summary proposes a critical legal analysis of the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights regarding indigenous peoples’ rights to lands, participation, and consultation. It focuses on the role that cultural diversity as a legal standard has played in the recognition of the indigenous peoples’ right to consultation and participation in all matters that directly affect them, as a guarantee for the protection of their right to communal property and natural resources traditionally used, and for safeguarding their cultural identity".

International action against racial discrimination

Electronic book by Banton Michael, Oxford Scholarship Online, 2003

ABSTRACT
"The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) was, in 1969, the first of the UN human rights treaties to come into force. Many of the 143 states that by 1995 had become parties to it did not initially appreciate how extensive were the obligations they had assumed. They undertook to submit periodic reports; these have to be examined by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which in turn reports to the UN General Assembly. During the years 1970–1995, CERD has greatly improved international oversight of governmental action in this field, but understanding of what is entailed in the prohibition of this form of discrimination is still limited. Further progress depends upon a triangular relationship between states parties, the treaty monitoring body, and members of the public within states parties."

Calculating Race: Racial Discrimination in Risk Assessment

Electronic Book by Benjamin Wiggins,Oxford Scholarship Online, 2020

ABSTRACT
"Calculating Race: Racial Discrimination in Risk Assessment presents the historical relationship between statistical risk assessment and race in the United States. It illustrates how, through a reliance on the variable of race, actuarial science transformed the nature of racism and, in turn, helped usher racial disparities in wealth, incarceration, and housing from the nineteenth century into the twentieth. The monograph begins by investigating the development of statistical risk assessment explicitly based on race in the late-nineteenth-century life insurance industry. It then traces how such risk assessment migrated from industry to government, becoming a guiding force in parole decisions and in federal housing policy. Finally, it concludes with an analysis of “proxies” for race—statistical variables that correlate significantly with race—in order to demonstrate the persistent presence of race in risk assessment even after the anti-discrimination regulations won by the Civil Rights Movement. Offering readers a new perspective on the historical importance of actuarial science in structural racism, Calculating Race is a particularly timely contribution as Big Data and algorithmic decision-making increasingly pervade American life."