The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) was and is, as a part of the emerging international human rights framework, a reaction to the atrocities of World War II, the Shoah, colonial rule and hundreds of years of deeply embedded ideologies of inequality. The destructive powers of the underlying, oppressive and inhumane ideologies are by no means a thing of the past. At the time of writing of this review, anti-racist demonstrations all around the globe remind the world of systemic discrimination against People of Colour (PoC). George Floyd's death, induced by an officer of the Minneapolis police force, with others standing idly by, has yet again called to mind the long-standing discriminatory practices whose detrimental impacts affect the daily lives of millions and can ultimately be fatal. This is not solely a US-American problem: deaths of non-white persons in police custody occurring under doubtful circumstances are (once more) called to the attention of societies at large by protestors everywhere. Simultaneously, academia, political representatives and government officials are publicly discussing reforms of provisions of German anti-discrimination legislation, including its central norm in the main German constitutional act, the Basic Law. At the centre of the discourse is the very usage of ‘race’ as a legal term.

The publication of the ICERD commentary at hand, edited by Doris Angst and Emma Lantschner, could hence not be more topical or important. Created shortly after the 50th anniversary of the Convention's entry into force, the commentary is the first of its kind in German. The publication's content section starts with a timely discussion of the usage of the term ‘race’, its different implications in various languages and its respective historical backgrounds. Conceptualised as an in-depth yet accessible commentary for German speakers, the volume has the potential to have an immediate impact on the quality of the present discourse among academia and decision-makers alike. The publication consists of contributions by an impressive group of renowned experts in the field of public international, non-discrimination and human rights law, as well as anti-discrimination practitioners based in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.