The United Nations and the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business in UCD will join forces to introduce a programme to combat racism.

The programme, will aim to involve leading business schools worldwide. It has been discussed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, and the Smurfit school's executive chairman, Mr Jerry Liston, who met at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Mrs Robinson said the plan was to get the world's leading business schools to come together to introduce new topics to the curriculum.

"Human rights, the environment and core labour standards should all be part of it. If young up-and-coming business leaders are comfortable with the norms and standards, that ought to translate into much better standards."

Welcoming the initiative, Mr Liston said 25 per cent of the school's students were now international.

"There is no racism in UCD but we have to be even more positive than that and acknowledge people's differing needs," he added.

The Smurfit school was recently rated 14th out of 2,000 in a Financial Times survey of world business schools.

It was voted fifth in terms of value for money regarding fees for MBAs and what salaries students could expect on completing the course.

This weekend, the director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Mr Donncha O'Connell, criticised the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, for not leading on the race issue.

Mr O'Connell, addressing a conference on the theme, "Ireland: Pluralism or Prejudice?", accused the Government of delaying its anti-racism campaign.