Historic Exclusion and Persisting Inequalities: Advancing Equal Rights on the Basis of Race and Ethnicity

Apartheid in South Africa and slavery and Jim Crow laws in the U.S. are but two examples of how racial and ethnic discrimination embedded in the law have devastated lives and countries. Today, explicit racial discrimination in the law has diminished; however, the impacts of systemic discrimination continue to reverberate, jeopardizing equal rights and opportunities. This chapter examines whether the world’s constitutions fully guarantee equal rights on the basis of race, ethnicity, and language, including whether these protections comprehensively address direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, and segregation. This chapter also examines whether constitutions allow for affirmative measures to remedy past inequality and exclusion, and evaluates some of the key considerations in shaping effective policies.