Republic of Korea
Thank you, Mr. President.
The Durban Review Conference marked a valuable opportunity to reaffirm that the international community remains resolved to fight racism. Despite a politicized incident which regrettably jeopardized the credibility of the Conference, we achieved the consensus on the outcome document, which, we are satisfied to note, without pointing out specific regions, conveys a universally valid massage that we will not tolerate racism. It is also noteworthy that this document strikes a delicate balance between exercising the freedom of expression and taking a responsibility for its consequences. This achievement was possible thanks to the sprit of tolerance and reconciliation shown by the participants.
The question now is whether we have a genuine will to put into practice this outcome document. At this point, my delegation would like to emphasize that the domestic implementation of the document by each government is of primary importance. The document should be regarded as a pledge of each participating government to its relevant domestic constituencies that it will take concrete actions to rigorously combat racism and protect victims within its territory.
It goes without saying that the international cooperation to fight racism should also be further built upon the outcome of the Conference. In this regard we would like to briefly touch upon a couple of issues.
First, as we agreed in the paragraph 124 of the outcome document, the effectiveness of follow-up mechanisms to the DDPA should be enhanced. In this session, the extension of the mandate of the intergovernmental working group on the effective implementation of the DDPA is being discussed. While supporting in principle the initiative to prolong the mandate itself, we would like to underline that we will need to further discuss the ways and means to improve its efficiency and to ensure better synergy with other mechanisms avoiding duplication and redundancy.
Second, we expect a productive discussion in the Ad Hoc Committee on the elaboration of complementary standards. As agreed in the last session of the Committee, we submitted a joint contribution to the chair last month along with Argentina, Switzerland,
Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay and Iceland. The joint contribution includes the principle of the future discussion of the Ad Hoc Committee which the delegations participating in this joint contribution believe deserves the cross regional support.
That is, the Committee should not duplicate, undermine and contradict existing norms and standards and should have an agreement by consensus on the identification of any gaps as well as on the way to address them.
To conclude, Mr. President, my delegation wishes to reiterate my government’s continued commitment to fulfill its shared responsibility in combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
I thank you. /end/
