Racial discrimination in jury selection is specifically prohibited by law in many jurisdictions throughout the world. In the United States, it has been defined through a series of judicial decisions. However, juries composed solely of one racial group are legal in the United States and other countries. While the racial composition of juries is not dictated by law, racial discrimination in the selection of jurors (regardless of the jury's ultimate composition) is specifically prohibited. Depending on context, the phrases "all-white jury" or "all-black jury" can raise the expectation that deliberations may be unfair.

In Australia, the right to a representative jury is severely limited. Australian Aboriginals are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, but seldom appear on juries even in parts of Australia where they represent a sizable portion of the population.

Courts have examined objections raised when the selection of juries did not represent either the social class or ethnic background of the accused. Current law does not extend a legal right to that degree of representation on a jury, provided that selection of the jury pool has complied with the Juries Act 1967 (VIC).

There is a history of Aboriginal people being underrepresented in jury pools, or completely absent in juries selected to hear cases involving Aboriginal defendants. Some reasons offered are that Aboriginal people may be excluded from juries due to not being enrolled to vote (which is how juries are typically selected), or that they failed to respond to a summons, or because of challenges by the prosecution and defense attorneys, or because their English may be poor. Australia has mandatory voter enrolment and mandatory voting, but this is sometimes unenforced especially in remote areas or among homeless people.

However, there is also evidence that Aboriginal people are disadvantaged by the criminal justice system itself and its processes (such as jury selection). The ALRC found that Aboriginal Australians were 7 times more likely to be charged with a crime and brought before the courts, and 12.5 times more likely to receive a sentence of imprisonment.

Canada has also struggled with the issue of racial discrimination in jury selection, especially for First Nations people. In 2001, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) stopped producing band lists of First Nations people living on reserve for provincial jury rolls because of privacy concerns. The exclusion of this information from provincial jury rolls meant First Nations people living on reserves were not properly represented on juries.

The removal of First Nations people living on reserves from provincial jury rolls directly collided with the Supreme Court of Canada's 1991 decision of R. V. Sherrat [1991] 1 SCR 509 wherein the Court found that the "representativeness right" is an essential component of the right to trial by jury.  In particular, the Court pronounced that:

The perceived importance of the jury and the Charter right to jury trial is meaningless without some guarantee that it will perform its duties impartially and represent, as far as is possible and appropriate in the circumstances, the larger community. Indeed, without the two characteristics of impartiality and representativeness, a jury would be unable to perform properly many of the functions that make its existence desirable in the first place