Media Releases

In 2021 Australia will have its human rights record assessed at the United Nations Human Rights Council in a process known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The UPR provides an opportunity for other nations to identify human rights problems in Australia and make recommendations about possible solutions.

Australia’s human rights record is set to face intense scrutiny in 2020 when the Australian Government appears before the Human Rights Council in Geneva for its major four yearly human rights review.

The Human Rights Law Centre joined 14 other non-governmental organisations to express concern about the governments of Human Rights Council members attacking and discrediting UN experts when human rights abuses by Council members are called out.

The Australian Government should immediately end military ties with Myanmar, Australia’s foremost international human rights and development organisations jointly said today. They called on the Australian government to impose targeted sanctions on military commanders responsible for atrocities committed against ethnic Rohingya, and to press for an international mechanism to assist future prosecutions.

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, unveiled a much-needed initiative to help combat the growing problem of governments preventing human rights defenders from engaging with the UN or punishing and even imprisoning them when they do so.

In the lead up to Australia’s review by the UN Human Rights Council, the Australian NGO Coalition has released a series of Fact Sheets and held a briefing event to inform UN member states about the human rights situation in Australia.

The Human Rights Law Centre’s director of advocacy and research, Emily Howie, is in the UK attending a Wilton Park meeting on strengthening the UN human rights treaty monitoring system. The meeting brings together representatives from government, civil society, the UN system and national human rights systems to discuss ways to improve states’ compliance with their international human rights law obligations and their implementation of the recommendations and views of UN bodies.

Jared Genser and Bruno Stagno Ugarte (eds), The United Nations Security Council in the Age of Human Rights, Cambridge University Press, 2014 reviewed by the HRLC’s Emily Howie

From 15-17 November 2013, Sri Lanka will host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, following which Sri Lanka will chair the Commonwealth for two years. Many rights groups have raised concerns about Sri Lanka’s suitability to host CHOGM, and to hold the position as chair, given the serious human rights issues that remain unresolved in the country.

President Rajapaksa’s assurances to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to investigate allegations of war crimes by all sides remain unmet, Human Rights Watch said.

Five major UN humanitarian agencies have made a joint appeal to the international community to act in Syria

On 2 April the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of controlling the movement of weapons across borders in the first ever treaty on the international trade of arms.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights and the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women has expressed serious concerns that cuts to payments to single parents may be a violation of Australia’s international human rights obligations.

The UN Human Rights Council will be reviewing the human rights situation of Sri Lanka during its upcoming session in March. 

The UN Human Rights Committee has recognised extraterritorial obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. On 31 October 2012, in its Concluding Observations on Germany's sixth periodic review under the ICCPR, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concern regarding steps taken by Germany to protect against the human rights impacts of German companies operating abroad.

The 11th Session of Assembly of States Parties for the International Criminal Court took place in The Hague from 14–21 November 2012.

The UN Human Rights Committee has asked Australia to explain how a range of laws, policies and practices are compatible with international human rights standards ahead of a major review of Australia’s human rights record.

As Australia focuses on the passage of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, has released her Annual Report for 2012.

In offering redress to victims of torture and their families, “restoration of the dignity of the victim is the ultimate objective,” according to the UN Committee against Torture. The Committee has just published a detailed General Comment expanding on the key article in the Convention against Torture which says that victims of torture and their families have “an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation, including the means for as full rehabilitation as possible”.

Australia is scheduled to be reviewed by the UN Committee against Torture for its compliance with the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 2013.

Together with a group of leading human rights and community organisations, the HRLC has provided a private briefing to the UN Human Rights Committee on the state of human rights in Australia.

Australia has a critical role to play in focusing the the UN Security Council’s attention more sharply on global human rights issues and situations of concern.

In June this year the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report setting out a series of recommendations for strengthening the treaty body system. Those recommendations were based on the outcomes of a series of consultations that had been held since late 2009, known informally as the ‘Dublin process’.

The Australian Government’s failure to implement more than 20 recommendations from the UN Human Rights Committee highlights the need to make the promotion and protection of human rights a national priority.

The Human Rights Law Centre has called on the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings to urgently investigate Australia’s extensive support for an Indonesian police unit implicated in serious human rights abuses in the province of West Papua.

The Australian Government’s failure to implement more than 20 recommendations from the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee highlights the need to make the promotion and protection of human rights a national priority. Making a submission to the UN Human Rights Committee – which is preparing for a major review of Australia’s human rights record – the Human Rights Law Centre criticised the Australian Government for dragging its feet in a number of key areas of human rights concern.

In a ground-breaking resolution, the United Nation’s premier human rights forum, the Human Rights Council, has called for Paris Principles-compliant national human rights institutions (NHRIs) to be able to participate in other UN meetings and forums, including the UN General Assembly.

Ms Navi Pillay, having been appointed to a second term as the High Commissioner for Human Rights, opened the 20th Special Session of the Human Rights Council on 18 June. Ms Pillay reminded delegates that the “backdrop of crises” – political, economic and humanitarian – against which they now meet pose serious obstacles to the realisation of human rights across the globe.

“The establishment of the human rights treaty bodies and the evolution of the treaty body system is one of the greatest achievements in the efforts of the international community to promote and protect human rights,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in her report on the strengthening of the human rights treaty body system.

Australia faced a hard sell to defend its human rights record when it appeared before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on 8 June 2011. Australia’s delegation delivered its formal response to 145 recommendations made as part of the UN’s Universal Periodic Review process, which reviews the human rights records of all 192 United Nations Member States.

The Australian Government has today formally responded to recommendations made by the UN’s Human Rights Council in February this year, claiming it will accept, at least in part, 90 percent of the recommendations arising from the Universal Periodic Review process. Whilst welcoming the majority of the Government’s response, the Human Rights Law Centre’s Director of International Human Rights Advocacy, Ben Schokman, said the ten percent the Government has rejected contain some of the most significant recommendations.

On 3 September 2010, the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, together with the International Service for Human Rights and the Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team, provided a Brief on the Pacific Region to Ms Margaret Sekaggya, the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, in advance of her visit to Fiji scheduled for 6 to 10 September 2010. The brief is based on desktop research and provides preliminary or background information on human rights structures, initiatives and issues in the Pacific region. 

Australia is to be reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council through the Universal Periodic Review process in January 2011. A coalition of 68 NGOs - coordinated by the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, Kingsford Legal Centre and the National Association of Community Legal Centres - has submitted a 5 page Report to the UN Human Rights Council on Australia

Australia is to be reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council through the Universal Periodic Review process in January 2011. A coalition of NGOs has prepared a 5 page report on human rights in Australia, setting out key issues and concrete recommendations.  The principal authors of the report are the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, Kingsford Legal Centre and the National Association of Community Legal Centres.

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has urged Australia to make human rights a priority at a time when the global financial crisis threatens the dignity, equality and freedom of many poor and vulnerable groups.  In a landmark report, the Committee also called on Australia to take urgent action to address the human rights implications of climate change and to increase aid to developing countries; the fist time that a UN treaty body has included recommendations on these issues in a human rights report.

The UN Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights will review Australia’s compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Geneva on 5 and 6 May 2009. On 4 May 2009, a non-government delegation, comprising representatives from the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, the National Association of Community Legal Centres and Kingsford Legal Centre, will brief the Committee on the state of  human rights in Australia and measures to improve performance.  The Committee will release its report on Australia on or around 22 May 2009.

The UN Human Rights Committee has released its Concluding Observations following a review of Australia's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  The Committee's recommendations on Australia are the first since 2000 and an important test for the Rudd Government in light of its Security Council bid and its stated commitment to 'human rights leadership'. The Committee comments on a number of positive human rights developments in Australia, including the National Human Rights Consultation and the Apology to the Stolen Generations.  However, the Committee also raises a number of serious concerns and makes concrete recommendations for reform.

The UN Human Rights Committee will review the state of human rights in Australia in March 2009 in New York. On 16 and 23 March, the Committee will be briefed by a coalition of leading Australian human rights organisations, including the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, the National Association of Community Legal Centres and Amnesty International.  On 23 and 24 March, the Committee will receive submissions from a high-level delegation from the Australian Government.  It will release its report on Australia on or around 3 April.

In late 2008, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights called for submissions on its draft General Comment 20 on Non-Discrimination.