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Abstract
Racial discrimination continues to haunt our societies, calling for sustained and new solutions. In 1994, the US government signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Three years later, it ratified this international agreement. This article reviews the effectiveness of this United Nations Convention and discusses its main provisions: national reporting and the individual communications procedure. It finds that the treaty contains comprehensive and legally effective provisions to combat racial discrimination and argues that social workers, along with other professionals, should engage with the international legal regime to assist their clientele to combat racial discrimination. Social workers have a number of roles: advocate, educator, service provider and broker. Their involvement in such an international legal regime would have an added significance; it has the potential to expand the domain of international social work as well as overcome the limits of domestic action against racial discrimination.