'Taking Human Rights from Geneva to Geraldton and Geelong' - Seminar on Follow Up to the UPR (Syd on 29 March and Melb on 6 Apr)

The Human Rights Law Resource Centre and the Australian Human Rights Commission present

Taking Human Rights from Geneva to Geraldton and Geelong:

Using the Universal Periodic Review Process to Improve Human Rights on the Ground

with

The Hon Catherine Branson QC

Australian Human Rights Commission

Dr Annemarie Devereux

Office of International Law, Attorney-General’s Department

Ben Schokman

Human Rights Law Resource Centre

Sydney, 29 March 2011

12.30pm – 2.00pm

DLA Phillips Fox, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney

Melbourne, 6 April 2011

1.00pm – 2.30pm

Room 102, Melbourne Law School

185 Pelham Street, Carlton

RSVP by 23 March to admin@hrlrc.org.au or (03) 8636 4450

On 27 January 2011, Australia’s human rights record was reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva under the Universal Periodic Review, a process which provides other countries the opportunity to ask questions and make recommendations regarding the human rights performance of the country under review.

Australia received over 145 recommendations from 50 countries. The Government was widely praised for its constructive engagement with the process and for initiatives such as the national Human Rights Framework, the Apology and the commitment to ‘Close the Gap’. However, the Government also faced calls to enact a Human Rights Act, recognise same-sex marriage, abolish mandatory detention and entrench Indigenous rights in the Constitution. The Government has committed to respond to the recommendations by June.

Join our expert panel, each of whom was in Geneva for the review, to discuss the process and the ways in which we can use the UPR to promote and protect human rights on the ground.