Published on September 17, 2019.
This essay criticizes the IMADR Geneva Office, Komatsu Taisuke, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the composition of CERD, Japan’s review, hate speech, the comfort women issue, and matters involving Okinawa, the Ainu, and Buraku discrimination, arguing that UN mechanisms and anti-Japanese NGOs have been used to attack Japan.

September 17, 2019.
This mind, like a communist mind or that of an Asahi Shimbun editorial writer itself—one is left speechless.
The following is an article I happened to find on the internet this morning.
It goes without saying that here, unexpectedly, are all the answers to what the United Nations is and what the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is.
Emphasis in the text, apart from headings, and passages between ＊ and ＊ are mine.
The Changing Faces of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Komatsu Taisuke.
IMADR Geneva Office, in charge of UN advocacy.
＊99.9 percent of the Japanese people did not know about this man.
IMADR Geneva Office, in charge of UN advocacy—99.9 percent of the Japanese people know absolutely nothing about this either.
But the Asahi Shimbun and others must have known.
I say this as someone who subscribed to and read the Asahi carefully until August four years ago, so there is no doubt whatsoever.
Yet, for some reason, the Asahi, or NHK, has never once reported on the existence of this man, what the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is, or who its members are.
This is despite the fact that these media outlets, supposedly gatherings of journalists, have kept repeating “the United Nations, the United Nations” so insistently.
The reason they did not say it is probably that this man was something like a keystone of their attacks on Japan and attacks on the administration, based on their self-abasing historical view and anti-Japanese ideology.
The wickedness of the Asahi and NHK has truly reached its extreme.
At the same time, the negligence of politicians has also reached its extreme.
The negligence of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would deserve seppuku in the age of the samurai.
For the man mentioned above is not doing these things because he has received votes from the people and gained the trust of the Japanese people at all.
The phrase outrageous beyond words exists precisely for this man’s conduct.
If this man were Chinese, he would immediately be arrested and detained, and by now would have been severely punished, including possibly with death, for crimes such as treason.＊
2016 is a milestone year for the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD.
As reported in this issue, it marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and it is likely to be a year in which reflection on the past and progress are required.
On the occasion of this important year, the committee itself is also changing greatly.
The faces that had served as committee members for many years are leaving the committee.
To list their names, they are Committee member Diaconu of Romania, Committee member Huang of the People’s Republic of China, Committee member January-Bardill of the Republic of South Africa, Committee member Lahiri of India, and Committee member Vázquez of the United States of America.
These committee members have completed their terms and are leaving the committee.
Retiring committee members.
Committee member Diaconu is a former diplomat and is currently a professor at Spiru Haret University in Bucharest.
He is a veteran who served as a CERD member for more than twenty years.
Despite his background as a former diplomat, he was characterized in reviews by asking governments direct and straightforward questions.
He is an expert in international law and is a committee member who has strongly advocated the need for anti-discrimination laws and hate speech regulation.
Because he is from Romania, where many Roma in Europe have roots or still reside, he was well versed in discrimination against Roma and the deep-rooted nature of that problem.
This committee member was very friendly toward NGOs, and this was also the case during the 2014 review of the periodic report of the Japanese government.
In the Japan review, he asked questions that well reflected the domestic situation regarding the definition of racial discrimination in domestic law and anti-discrimination laws, hate speech regulation, the protection of Ainu language and culture, the uniqueness of Ryukyu and Okinawa, the guarantee of the human rights of migrants, the establishment of a domestic human-rights institution, and Buraku discrimination.
＊“He asked questions that well reflected the domestic situation.”
What on earth is the structure of this man’s mind, or this arrogance?
What immediately came to mind was this mind, like a communist mind, or like that of an Asahi Shimbun editorial writer itself.
One is left speechless.＊
Committee member January-Bardill is a former diplomat who has also served as ambassador to Switzerland, and she is a veteran committee member with more than ten years of experience.
She had an interest in discrimination against people of African descent and in multiple discrimination against indigenous women and minority women.
Although she did not speak frequently during reviews, she left a strong impression of conducting dialogue with governments through questions expressed in easy-to-understand language.
She has also worked to develop CERD’s distinctive system of “early warning measures and urgent procedures.”
This system arose from reflection on the fact that the international community had failed to prevent past mass killings and other atrocities.
It is a procedure that enables CERD to sound the alarm to governments and UN agencies for the purpose of prevention when large-scale human-rights violations against communities protected under the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination are feared.
She, too, was friendly toward NGOs, and she always greeted the author with a smile.
In the Japan review, she expressed concern about human-rights violations against foreigners living in Japan and resident Koreans, such as the hiring of foreigners in public service and xenophobia.
Committee member Vázquez is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and also a visiting professor at Harvard University.
Because he served as a CERD member for only one term from 2012, his period was shorter than that of other members, but he asked sharp questions through deep analysis of domestic law, such as its consistency with the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and his presence was very large because of his high expertise in the legal field.
The United States has a spirit of not imposing any regulation on freedom of expression, but by contrast, Committee member Vázquez took the lead among the members in emphasizing the need for hate speech regulation.
Outside the legal field as well, he was interested in the protection of human-rights activists, the rights of indigenous peoples, the punishment of hate crimes, and democratic governance.
He was also one of the few committee members who asked questions about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, LGBT, belonging to minorities.
In the Japan review, from the very beginning he touched upon street demonstrations involving hate speech and clearly pointed out that such speech was “an imminent threat of violence that must be controlled.”
He called on Japan to address not only the regulation of hate speech by law but also other fields, while also asking that regulatory laws not be abused against minorities and other people in vulnerable positions.
China’s Committee member Huang is a former diplomat who has also served as representative to the United Nations in Vienna.
Although he rarely spoke during reviews, he came to the review room earlier than anyone else and often chatted pleasantly with NGOs and the author.
In the Japan review, he expressed concern about hate speech and historical denial based on colonial thought, and pointed out that victims of such hate speech were not being given relief.
He also asked about the possibility of reinvestigating the massacre of Koreans and Chinese at the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake.
Furthermore, he strongly condemned the continuing human-rights violations against victims of the “comfort women” system and called on Japan to implement recommendations from United Nations treaty bodies.
Committee member Lahiri of India was also a former diplomat and served as a CERD member from 2008.
Unfortunately, from the time the author took up his post in Geneva, he had fallen ill, and in 2015 he did not participate in any review due to poor health.
In the Japan review, he referred to delays in guaranteeing minority rights and expressed surprise at the seriousness of hate speech.
On that basis, he emphasized the need to establish a domestic human-rights institution in accordance with the Paris Principles.
New committee members.
For CERD, losing these members who have long led the committee is a great loss.
For NGOs as well, it is a blow to lose Committee member Diaconu, who always threw sharp questions at governments, Committee member Vázquez, who possessed deep legal insight, and Committee member January-Bardill, who had the perspective of discriminated communities.
However, the new members are also faces from whom equal, or even greater, activity can be expected.
China’s Committee member Li is the current ambassador to Samoa and graduated from Columbia University Law School.
Although he has no previous career in the field of human rights, his contribution as an expert in international law is expected.
Spain’s Committee member Malgwan is an expert on racial discrimination who served for five years as director of the government agency “Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia.”
Since his current main occupation is as an NGO representative, he is expected to be friendly toward NGOs as well.
The United States’ Committee member McDougall is a researcher at Fordham University School of Law, and as an African-American woman lawyer she has long worked on issues of racial discrimination within the United States.
Furthermore, she was the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on minority issues, at that time called an independent expert, and also served as a CERD member for three years from 1998.
I had the opportunity to speak with her at last November’s event commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
She was friendly and full of energy, and great activity from her in CERD is highly expected.
Mauritania’s Committee member Mohamed is the government’s attorney general.
In Mauritania, discrimination based on a social hierarchy system exists, and although an anti-slavery law was enacted in 2015, there are still people treated as slaves within the hierarchy system.
As someone from a country where such discrimination based on work and descent exists, I hope he will address this unique form of discrimination in the committee.
Jamaica’s Committee member Shepherd is a professor of history at the University of the West Indies and a member of the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent.
Until now, in CERD, the only expert on discrimination against people of African descent was Committee member Murillo Martínez of Colombia, but with Committee member Shepherd joining, improvement in the committee’s expertise on this issue can be expected.
Also, because the International Decade for People of African Descent began in 2015, it is important for the committee to address this issue more fully.
Finally, among the new committee members, four except Committee member Malgwan are women.
As a result, the gender ratio of the committee, which had been 15 to 3, will become 11 to 7.
It is still not half and half, but the improvement of the gender balance of the committee itself, which should address multiple discrimination, is a major step forward.
This essay continues.