On his first day as Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, Ambassador Gianlorenzo Cornado participated to the work of the 38th ordinary session of the Human Rights Council on the occasion of the interactive dialogue with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance.
In his intervention, Ambassodor Cornado expressed support to the Special Rapporteur views about the need to adopt an intersectional approach to racial discrimination with reference to citizenship, nationality and immigration laws, in order to prevent the adoption and enforcement of laws that ØC while pursuing other honorable purposes, such as fighting gender-based discrimination ØC contribute to racial, ethnic and religious exclusion.
The new Permanent Representative also offered an example of Italian best practice referring to the Italian National Plan of Action against racism and xenophobia aimed at implementing a comprehensive strategy to support national and local policies in order to ensure the full respect of the principle of equality and to counter discrimination, racism, xenophobia and related intolerance, accordingly with international standards.
In the year of the 70th anniversary of th UDHR, Ambassador Cornado seized the occasion offered by the interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur to reconfirm the full commitment of Italy to prevent and combat all forms of discrimination and to implement relevant human rights international instruments, namely the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Covenants and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, that are powerful tools to ensure dignity and equal rights to all.
The fight against any form of discrimination is one of the pledges that Italy presented in support of its canidature as a member of the Human Rights Council for the term 2019-2021.
