ABSTRACT                                                                                                                                
This doctoral research project critically analyses multilevel multi-stakeholder claims of systemic racism, which marginalises and excludes people of African descent from universal human rights. In that regard, this autoethnographic research defines people of African descent, as the African diaspora, Africans, Afro-descendants, and Black people, specifically referring to descendants of historically enslaved and colonised Africans, as well as subsequent migrations from the African continent. Essed (2014, p.59) claims Afro-Europeans experience systemic racism and discrimination, regardless of country, socio-economic conditions, gender, age, or level of education, although significant numbers are well integrated into European society.  Afrophobia/Afriphobia can therefore be defined as specific forms of systemic racism and structural discrimination which target people of African descent, manifested by acts of direct, indirect, and structural racial discrimination and violence including hate speech, Momodou and Pascoet (2014, pp.262-263). Afrophobia hinders Africans and Afro-descendants in Europe from fulfilling universal human rights equally, generally, and globally in accordance with the Vienna Declaration 1993. Empirical evidence gathered from desk and field research in this project adequately warrants the argument, that we remain marginalised from equal access to universal human rights. With this in mind, my thesis’ central research question is, can the African diaspora better fulfil universal human rights, where the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is implemented to achieve the International Decade for People of African Descent (IDPAD)’s thematic objectives? Implementation of Targets for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must facilitate achievement of IDPAD’s thematic objectives of recognition, justice, and development; e.g. policymakers must reduce inequality on the grounds of race or ethnicity, within and between countries as stipulated in SDG 10, to strategically address Afrophobia.

The attached systematic literature review has the primary goal of critical evaluating  European anti-racism norms and policies, to strategically address Afrophobia. Systematic review of academic sources highlights the chronological development of theoretical concepts relevant to the implementation and evaluation of anti-racism norms. For example, my background theory demonstrates Critical Race Theory (CRT) in defining and interpreting legal concepts such as race and racism. However, recognizing the vast transdisciplinary body of scholarship theorizing CRT since it emerged in the 1980s, my primary focus is its application as a radical lens with which to interrogate European law. This eliminates research bias by primarily employing academic sources that theorize normative concepts, to interpret and create new and original knowledge that advocates IDPAD’s thematic objectives and SDGs. The literature review therefore seeks to inform the reader on legal concepts, in the context of the 2030 Agenda and IDPAD’s thematic objectives, by strategically engaging the lens of CRT to interrogate implementation of anti-racism norms. This acknowledges that, “Responding to race-based material disparities that persisted in the United States even after 1960s (…) legal scholars and activists in the 1970s developed CRT as a framework to challenge the deep-rooted philosophical, legal, systemic, and practical causes of racism (…) CRT has intellectual roots in critical theory, which examines the role of power, history, culture, and ideology on social phenomena, often with an eye to critiquing or correcting abuses of power. But CRT’s laser-focus on matters of race has led it to develop its own language and concepts” (Ogbonnaya-Ogburu, 2020, pp. 2-3). I argue IDPAD’s thematic objective of recognition entails awareness of inequalities in our access to universal human rights in relation to the normative framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. For example, SDG Target 10.2 aspires to empower and promote social, economic, and political inclusion for all irrespective of race, ethnicity, origin, or other status by 2030; whereas SDG Target 10.3 asserts implementation of anti-racism norms and policies. Similarly, SDG 16 acknowledges the importance of achieving social justice and systemic justice in the context of justice as a thematic objective of IDPAD. Moreover it will be highlighted that collaboration in global partnerships as asserted by SDG 17, should imperatively employ fully disaggregated statistical equality data, to monitor and eliminate Afrophobia in achieving the three pillars of sustainability, i.e. social, economic and environmental development.