Why did global racial equality not become a central principle of the multilateral framework of international order that emerged from the ashes of the Second World War? This lecture will address this question, drawing on the speaker’s previous theoretical work on norms and his new research comparing the discussion of race, human rights and world order at the San Francisco Conference of 1945 and the Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung in 1955. 1945, credited as the foundational moment of the supposedly open and inclusive Liberal International Order, suppressed racial equality, while 1955 made it the central organizing principle of world order. Power matters, but prejudice matters even more in the origins, diffusion and suppression of international norms. Despite subsequent advances within the human rights regime, the idea of global racial equality remains unfulfilled, with implications for the future of world order as powerful challenges confront the Liberal International Order.