Comments on the new set of Recommendations on Policing in Multi-Ethnic Societies

Abstract

In his comments on the new Recommendations on Policing in Multi-Ethnic Societies, the author raises some serious questions about the necessity, nature and scope of the new instrument, endorsed by the HCNM. He comes to the conclusion that various other instruments already exist in the same field and that it would have been logical to include these other instruments properly in the text of the new recommendations ( quod non ). The author also wonders why the recommendations don't go beyond the level of practical, operational guidelines, while its authority could have been enhanced substantially, if they would have been embedded effectively in the context of existing (legal or political) principles and standards. Finally, he puts some questions about the procedure to draft such recommendations, in particular the selection of 'experts'. The conclusion is that the recommendations on other minority issues, drafted in the 1990s under the first HCNM, are of a distinctively different and more authoritative nature than the new set of guidelines on policing, although the HCNM attention for this important topic should be welcomed.