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Controversially, arguments are often made that the actions of other nations are analogous to apartheid in South Africa, or constitute apartheid under the definition adopted in international law. In particular, racial segregation was the law in the American South until the mid-1960s. Some similarities between the situation in the U.S. and South Africa are:

• The races were kept separate.
• Blacks were systematically denied voting rights.
• Jim Crow etiquette was similar to apartheid etiquette.

Some differences were:

• In the U.S. after the civil war, there was never a class of blacks who were not citizens.
• Unlike the apartheid system, the Jim Crow system was not maintained by a very small white minority.
• There were no "homelands" in the U.S.
• Denial of voting rights in the U.S. was enforced by local custom, not by law.

Some Basques have argued that the Navarrese laws (in Spain) that do not grant official status to the Basque language are a form of apartheid. Supporters of Batasuna also call its illegalisation "apartheid".

The State of Jordan's Constitution denies Jews citizenship. Saudi Arabia denies citizenship not only to Jews, but to Christians as well, and non-Muslims are not permitted to reside permanently in the country.

The Israeli West Bank barrier is often referred to by critics as the Apartheid wall, and some critics of Israel refer to it as a "racist" and/or "Apartheid" state.

Saudi Arabia's discriminatory practices against women and non-Muslim minorities can also be described as forms of apartheid (see also for Human Rights Watch report).

Global apartheid is the view that rich democratic Western nations are acting in much the same way as white South Africa, by exploiting or ignoring the plight of people in developing countries. White South Africans justified their actions by citing black South Africans as nominally removed from them in terms of geography and therefore citizens of another territory.