The valuable legacy of body of work that Atsuko left behind will continue to fuel the passion she lived for, in others.
(Bangkok) – The human rights defenders’ community has lost a valuable member in Atsuko Tanaka Fox who died in Geneva on August 28, 2007 due to cancer.
Atsuko had been working with the International Movement Against Discrimination and Racism (IMADR) as their representative in Geneva. Her special commitment until her death has been helping combat racial discrimination, something she has done for IMADR for the past 10 years. This was concretely expressed in her work with minorities and lately, discrimination based on descent and work. She was also deeply involved in the preparations to the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, during the Conference in Durban (hence called the Durban Conference) and the follow-up afterwards. Her post-Durban paper, “Anti-Durban Syndrome? Internal vis-à -vis inter-States (or groups of states) on the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action”, is an apt reading in preparation for the 2009 Durban Review Conference.
To enhance the capacity of civil society’s engagement with the CERD, she was the driving force behind the production of the manual “The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination: A Guide for NGOs”. This was borne by years of experience of assisting NGOs and communities with their reports to the CERD.  This pioneering effort is one of the legacies she left for human rights defenders to continue to work on.
FORUM-ASIA joins the world’s human rights defenders’ community in condoling with Atsuko’s husband, Graham Fox, and her family in their hour of bereavement. Graham is a human rights officer in the OHCHR and an assistant to the Independent Expert on Minority Issues (IEMI). Â
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For more information, please contact: Â
Anselmo Lee, Executive Director, +66 (02) 391 8801 (ext 502), [email protected]
Bernice Aquino See, Ethnic Minorities in Southeast Asia Programme, +66 (02) 391 8801 (ext 105), [email protected].
