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Repulsed by atrocities and shocked by the slaughter of millions, representatives from many countries gathered immediately after World War II to assess the cause of the catastrophe they had just experienced. Of all the possible explanations they could have used, these diplomats felt compelled to focus upon only one. "The great and terrible war which has now ended," they poignantly concluded, "was a war made possible by the denial of democratic principles of the dignity, equality, and mutual respect for men, and by the propagation, in their place, through ignorance and prejudice, of the doctrine of the inequality of men and races."' The horrors of this war represented neither the first case of discrimination and the denial of human rights in international politics, nor the last. But their blatant, widespread, and abhorrent nature brought into focus an issue described as "extremely complex,"2 "burning," 3 one of "great delicacy" for the world,4 and, indeed, as