What ECRI does
First, let’s briefly clarify what ECRI is and what it does. This commission, as mentioned, is part of the Council of Europe, an institution which is not part of the European Union and which should not be confused with either the European Council or the Council of the European Union. The Council of Europe, in fact, it is an international organization which is based in Strasbourg, France, and works to promote human rights, democracy and the rule of law across the European continent. 46 countries are members of the Council of Europe, including all 27 EU member states (in 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, Russia left the Council of Europe).
The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (abbreviated as “ECRI”) is an «independent human rights monitoring body». This commission, explains ECRI itself, «is specialized in issues relating to the fight against racism, discrimination (based on “race”, ethnic origin, skin colour, citizenship, religion, language, sexual orientation and gender identity), xenophobia, ‘antisemitism and intolerance’. The commission “is made up of independent and impartial members, designated for their moral authority and their recognized expertise in the matter”.
Among its tasks, ECRI must periodically monitor the situation country by country regarding racism and intolerance. At the end of the monitoring, the commission has the task of providing recommendations and suggestions – which in any case are not legally binding – to individual countries to resolve the problems that were identified during the monitoring. ECRI’s control activities are not made up of “investigations or testimonial evidence”, but are based “on information collected from a wide variety of sources”, including “national and international written sources”. During the monitoring period, some representatives of the commission visit the monitored country to meet “interested parties”, both governmental and non-governmental.
This monitoring activity began in 1998 and is carried out over a period of five years. After this period, monitoring begins again. The sixth monitoring cycle began in 2018 and the report published on 22 October by ECRI on Italy is part of this monitoring cycle. According to the checks of Political report carduntil today the commission he published the reports of the sixth monitoring cycle for 23 countries that are part of the Council of Europe, including Italy.
ECRI’s sixth monitoring cycle wetin particular, on three themes common to all countries: effective equality and access to rights; hate speech and violence motivated by hatred; integration and inclusion, to which are added themes specific to each country.
