UPR 2020-21 - Pre-Session Statements
Statement from the Australian NGO Coalition
Australia still has significant work to do to entrench human rights into Australian law and fully develop a human rights culture. Australia must adopt a comprehensive, judicially enforceable Charter of Human Rights within 3 years. Australia must remove all treaty reservations and ratify remaining human rights treaties including those which facilitate complaints under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Peoples
Aboriginal justice and human rights concerns have deteriorated since the last UPR. This failure is directly tied to a lack of Aboriginal decision making and racist policy approaches. The Stronger Futures, Cashless Debit Card and Community Development Program all target Aboriginal people, limit access to welfare payments and disproportionately enact fines, causing hunger and entrenching disempowerment.
Statement from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service
Since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody,1 there has been on average one Indigenous death in custody every three weeks, totalling over 441,2 and no criminal convictions for those responsible.
Refugees and asylum seekers
Australia has not fully implemented any of the 49 recommendations focusing on refugees and asylum seekers which were made during the second-cycle UPR.
People with Disability
There has been very little progress in implementation of the recommendations from Australia’s second Universal Periodic Review. The serious issues of concern raised by people with disability at that time, remain the same for this third UPR.