An introduction to the international law of racial discrimination, this book is the first to provide an inside account of how a United Nations human rights treaty body actually works. At the same time, it is an introduction to the international law of racial discrimination. The book focuses on the practical operation and implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, emphasizing throughout the relationship between law and politics.

The years 1965 8 were the 'liberal hour' for race relations policy in Britain. Laws were then enacted, enforcement agencies created, and community relations councils established. These bodies, and their personnel, have been called 'the race relations industry'. To many people, the output of this 'industry' appears disappointing relative to the input into it. This book examines a variety of optimistic assumptions about the speed with which immigrants adjust to a new environment; inadequate minority bargaining power; insufficiently speedy and decisive action by the central government;...

This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Michael Banton's classic book reviews historical theories of racial and ethnic relations and contemporary struggles to supersede them. It shows how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century concepts of race attempted to explain human difference in terms of race as a permanent type and how these were followed by social scientific conceptions of race as a form of status. In a new concluding chapter, "Race as Social Construct," Michael Banton makes the case for a historically sensitive social scientific understanding of racial and ethnic groupings that...