African nations demand Commission of Inquiry into 'systemic racism'

A woman walks past a mural of key American and African anti-racism activists, painted by a collective of Senegalese artists, in Dakar. Pic/AFP

African nations have prepared a draft resolution at the UN's top human rights body that singles out the US, and they would launch intense international scrutiny of systemic racism against people of African descent in the wake of recent high-profile killings of blacks by American police.

The draft text, a copy of which has been obtained by The Associated Press, could become the centrepiece for an urgent debate hastily scheduled for Wednesday for the Geneva-based Human Rights Council. It calls for a Commission of Inquiry - the rights body's most powerful tool to inspect human rights violations - to look into "systemic racism" and alleged violations of international human rights law and abuses against "Africans and of people of African descent in the United States of America and other parts of the world recently affected by law enforcement agencies" especially encounters that resulted in deaths.

Such work would be carried out "with a view to bringing perpetrators to justice," said the text, circulated by the Africa Group in the council. The breadth of support for the measure was not immediately clear. The US mission in Geneva declined immediate comment on the draft resolution.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the 47-member body two years ago, accusing it of an anti-Israel bias and of accepting members from some autocratic governments that are serial rights violators.

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