An unprecedented almost three months since the World Conference on Racism, the UN has not yet approved the Declaration or Plan of Action that the Member States adopted there. This delay, in the words of the Conference’s own Rapporteur-General, Brazilian Edna Roland, “has gone beyond acceptable limits”. According to diplomatic sources, the impasse is due to pressures from the European Union to attempt, once again, to limit commitments regarding reparations for the victims of colonialism and slavery, and the corresponding steadfastness of the African group, in their defense of the contents produced by the Conference. Some dozen paragraphs are in dispute, mainly those produced at the Conference by the working groups on the Past and on the Middle East. Their insertion into the Declaration or the Action Plan was entrusted, due to time constraints, to the event’s Secretariat, with the criterion that the Declaration should record matters of principle and the Plan should contain the items related to actions to be taken by States. This is what the European Union is now contesting, whereas the African group is advocating for these items to be included as agreed. There is also disagreement between the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, who was Conference Secretary, and the Conference Chair, South African diplomat Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Ms. Robinson maintains that the European Union will not accept the inclusion of these paragraphs in the Plan, whereas Ms. Dlamini-Zuma is holding to the decision as made, since these are the concrete measures that States must take to resolve the issues at hand. The Conference Rapporteur-General, Edna Roland, agrees with the Chairwoman. However, the findings of the Conference are faring even worse, since the High Commissioner for Human Rights was unable to present them before the UN General Assembly this last October 31st, for final approval; further, according to French newspaper Le Monde (20-11-01), there has even been a prohibition against distributing the working documents involved. To overcome this stalemate, the parties will have to reach some agreement. Otherwise, the matter will have to be addressed through special solutions, including: a call to put the matter to vote in the General Assembly; conclusion of the work under leadership of the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, himself; and others, none of which promise for the findings to be approved soon. According to Edna Roland, “The documents resulting from the Conference entail proposals for education, health, habitat, affirmative action, criminalization of racism, anti-discrimination training for the police forces and those administering justice. If applied to transform race relations, the potential would be very great”. Nevertheless, she adds that, with the obstacles that have been raised, the European Union intends to “delete any political content regarding reparations”. Accordingly, both governmental delegations and civil-society organizations are expressing their concern about this problem, since – after the Conference ended with tense consensus and was then eclipsed by the events of September 11th in the United States – this delay in final approval of the documents could relegate them to oblivion. This is especially true if the issues being discussed were at the heart of the potential boycott of preparations for the event by countries of the North and the subsequent abandonment of the Conference by the US and Israel. Disagreements about Reparations The controversy centers on three main paragraphs (97, 99 and 100), which state that the Conference expresses its repentance and apologies to the victims of colonialism and slavery, and calls for restoration of their dignity through appropriate, effective measures. The European Union is asking for this to be placed only in the Declaration, which is an ethical document, and not in the Action Plan, which is the document for commitments and measures to be taken, and would imply that the parties responsible for colonialism and slavery would be obliged to provide compensation to the peoples still suffering the consequences of these historical incongruities. Regarding the Middle East Although the disagreements hinge on the Israel/Palestine issue, particularly because of the requirement of viewing Israel as a racist State, the Conference findings include other topics, such as considering that human rights must be respected and that persons must not suffer discrimination because of the fight against terrorism, an issue that is even more crucial now than it was then and, consequently, raises greater resistance, but also greater sympathy than ever.