Two delegations, the United States and Israel, withdrew from the conference over objections to a draft document equating Zionism with racism.
Mary Robinson lost the support of the United States in her office of High Commissioner, and many of the potential political aftereffects of the conference were annulled by the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The attacks took place just three days after the conference ended, entirely eclipsing it in the news, and significantly affecting international relations and politics.
A commemorative Durban III conference in September 2011 in New York has also drawn significant criticism and was boycotted by 14 Western countries.
[5] The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action were adopted by the governmental delegates attending the Conference at the International Convention Centre.
It was dealt with cleverly in the Declaration, containing rhetoric that satisfied the African bloc, without applying retroactively against the descendants of colonizers the principle of crimes against humanity and without establishing a clear responsibility for reparations on the parts of former colonial states.
[6] The Durban Declaration provides that states recognize "that these historical injustices [slavery, colonialism, genocide, apartheid] have undeniably contributed to the poverty, underdevelopment, marginalization, social exclusion, economic disparities, instability and insecurity that affect many people in different parts of the world, in particular in developing countries."
Linking compensation to apartheid had the potential to polarize South African society, and produce the same effects as had the controversial land reform programmes in Zimbabwe.
In the end, the U.S. proposal was adopted, with the addition of a statement in the report indicating the different perspectives on the exact meaning of those brackets.
Western European states discussed informally amongst themselves, outside of the formal preparatory proceedings, what measures and levels of non-cöoperation they might adopt if the issue of compensation gained momentum at Durban itself.
[6] Before the conference, the debate over compensation was seen as dealing with the transatlantic slave trade, and the colonization of Africa by Europeans, thus pitting Western European states (including the former colonial powers of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom) and the United States against the African Group.
[6] Prior to the conference, on 3 August 2001, the African Group circulated a Non-Paper on the "Injustices of the Past", containing strong language but a generally moderate position.
[6] The African Group circulated a second Non-Paper on 3 September 2001 that was substantially stronger than its earlier one, with language shifts from "debt cancellation" to "immediate and unconditional cancellation of debt", emphasis upon crimes against humanity, and calls for reparation (something that the earlier paper had not included in part because of a U.S. demand, made at a preparatory meeting in Geneva, that such language be excluded from the text).
It had been suggested that they were trying to revive United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 (issued 1975, annulled 1991) which stated that "Zionism is a form of racism.".
[7] This stance was in part influenced by the U.S. threat of boycott, which would have made it impractical to insist upon harsh language condemning Israel or equating the suffering of the Palestinians with that of Holocaust victims.
[7] At the start of the Geneva meeting, the text had been presented that comprised six bracketed paragraphs dealing with "Zionist racist practices", including an appeal for Israel "to revise its legislation based on racial or religious discrimination such as the law of return and all the policies of an occupying power which prevent the Palestinian refugees and displaced persons from returning to their homes and properties", and a suggestion for the need "to bring the foreign occupation of Jerusalem by Israel together with all its racist practices to an end".
South African diplomats had already told Arab and Muslim countries that they would have to offer text that could describe the current situation without using such language as "ethnic cleansing practices against Palestinians".
[5] On 3 September 2001, after four days of deadlocked negotiations that did not reach agreement on language, the United States and Israeli delegations withdrew from the conference.
[8][9] The low-level U.S. delegation had kept a low profile throughout conference proceedings until that point, with delegates working quietly in sub-committee meetings, without (unlike in earlier conferences) giving news briefings or off the record statements to journalists, to change the text of the draft declaration, to make it less forceful and less specific against Israel, and to bring it into line with U.S. foreign policy goals with respect to the International Criminal Court (see United States and the International Criminal Court) by removing language that strengthened the ICC.
[5][8][11][12] Despite Colin Powell's denunciation of the "hateful language" that "singles out only one country in the world, Israel, for censure and abuse" in the draft text and U.S. delegate Tom Lantos's statement that the conference had been "wrecked by Arab and Islamic extremists", some saw the U.S. delegation's withdrawal as not being entirely related to the language on Israel, but attributed it also, in part, to a reluctance on the part of the U.S. to address the issue of slavery.
Australia was unhappy with the process, observing that "far too much of the time at the conference [had been] consumed by bitter divisive exchanges on issues which have done nothing to advance the cause of combating racism".
These NGOs provided research assistance at the Forum and helped to develop declarations and resolutions that dealt with the issue of compensation for slavery.
Several, including France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malta, Monaco, Nepal, the United Kingdom, note that they consider the provisions of the treaty to be restricted by and subject to the freedoms of speech and assembly set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
[22][24] According to John Font, in order to comply with the interpretation of CERD created by the NGOs at the Forum, the United States would have to "turn its political and economic system, together with their underlying principles, upside down — abandoning the free speech guarantees of the Constitution, bypassing federalism, and ignoring the very concept of majority rule since practically nothing in the NGO agenda is supported by the [U.S.] electorate".
Third, she had openly criticized the U.S. on various matters including the treatment of prisoners at Camp X-Ray, the "unsigning" of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court by the U.S., and the administration of capital punishment in the United States.
[5][26] The Palestinian Solidarity Committee of South Africa reportedly distributed copies of the antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Dr. Manning Marable, of Columbia University in New York, pointed out that one of the objectives of the Conference was to increase coordination in human rights activities, and to strengthen networks amongst those combating racism; and as such the actions of governments in response to the Conference are not the sole intended outcomes — actions by civil society and non-governmental agencies are also required.
Some countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and the United States, boycotted the conference.
In an 18 April 2009 speech, President Barack Obama announced the United States' boycott of the 2009 Durban Review Conference, reaffirming the country's opposition to language perceived as anti-Israel and anti-Western.
[30] Bernard-Henri Lévy credits the conference with being one of the inspirations for his book, Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism.