Gender, health and the law: opportunities and challenges for reform

The interaction between gender, health and law

The theme of this Special Issue of the Griffith Law Review is Gender, Health and Law, with a focus on the intersection between women’s health and the law.¹ Law may be used as a vehicle for promoting and protecting women’s health. For example, in Australia, the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) established the principle of no-fault divorce in Australian law; meaning that a court does not consider which partner was at fault in the event of a marriage breakdown. This legal development was significant for women’s health because it meant that women in abusive relationships could divorce their spouses without having to ‘prove’ the existence of such abuse. Following on from the introduction of ‘no-fault divorce’ came the gradual criminalisation of rape in marriage, culminating in the seminal 1991 High Court decision of R v L ² in which the court confirmed that the ‘marital rape exemption’ was no longer a part of Australian law and that a husband may be prosecuted for raping his wife. In light of the damaging effects that rape may have on women’s physical and mental health, the criminalisation of rape in marriage represented a tangible example of law responding to concerns for women’s health and wellbeing. Accordingly, in Australia the law has developed in some ways so as to recognise, promote and protect women’s health.

At the same time as aspects of the law have improved from a gendered perspective, it is important to recognise that law can operate as a vehicle for undermining women’s health. This can happen in a number of ways. Increasingly, for instance, we understand that the law – and legal processes – have a stigmatising potential. As Paula Baron has recently argued, ‘there is a growing awareness [ … ] of the ways in which law may contribute to, or seek to protect against, stigma’.³ For example, abortion is still a crime in many Australian jurisdictions.⁴ And while it may be arguable that despite remaining part of the criminal law, abortion is nevertheless widely accessible (at least for urban women seeking a first trimester abortion), the fact remains that the criminalisation of abortion exacerbates the stigma attached to abortion. This is relevant because stigmatisation is associated with increased risk of numerous health problems, including depression, hypertension, coronary heart disease and stroke.⁵ There is therefore a link between the criminalisation of abortion and negative health sequelae, even in circumstances where abortion is accessible. More broadly, these burgeoning understandings of the links between stigma, law, gender and health allow us to think through how the law can impact adversely on women’s health and – more constructively – may open up opportunities for law reform.

These examples illustrate just some of the ways in which women’s health is bound up with and impacted by the law and legal processes; they seek to convey the way in which women’s health may be sacrificed in deference to other more powerful voices. They also seek to convey the progress that has been made and the elevation (in certain circumstances) of women’s health above those traditionally powerful voices. The wheels of change keep turning; hopefully in the right direction. In recent months, for instance, steps have been taken at both the local and global levels to address issues of fundamental concern to women’s health. At the local level, the Royal Commission into Family Violence Released its Report. At the global level, the International Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights released its General Comment on the Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health.

Family violence: progress at the local level

On 30 March 2016, the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence handed down its final report,⁶ the culmination of a commission process lasting more than a year.⁷ The Letters Patent establishing the Commission and its terms of reference were delivered on 22 February 2015. Those terms of reference⁸ noted that the social, cultural and economic impacts of family violence are ‘profound’:

1. In 2013 there were 44 family violence-related deaths in Victoria.

2. For women and children, family violence has extensive and often long term physical, psychological and emotional consequences. It creates homelessness, disrupts children’s schooling and leads to social and economic isolation for women.

3. The estimated annual cost of family violence to the Victorian economy in 2009 was $3.4 billion.⁹

The Commissioners were asked to ‘inquire into and report on how Victoria’s responses to family violence can be improved by providing practical recommendations to stop family violence’.¹⁰

Although the Commission recognised that family violence can affect both men and women, data suggest that three quarters of family violence victims attended by police are women, and that 77% of perpetrators recorded by police are men.¹¹ The implications for health and wellbeing are similarly and profoundly gendered. The Commission’s final report provides a compelling overview of family violence’s ‘devastating effects on the health and wellbeing of victims’,¹² including the significant and disproportionate implications for women and children. There are fatalities: as noted above, there are a number of family violence-related deaths in Victoria each year (with women disproportionately represented as victims). Many victims of family violence experience physical injuries including bruising, broken and fractured bones, internal injuries, head and neck injuries and acquired brain injury.¹³ According to the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, ‘the most profound and long lasting effects of family violence are those related to mental ill health’.¹⁴ These include depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other things, as well as ‘complex trauma disorder’.¹⁵ Importantly, sexual abuse (which is often inappropriately overlooked in discussions about family violence) is a major form of family violence and a risk factor for suicide and homicide.¹⁶ Many pregnant women experience family violence; this carries additional and compounding risks for the woman and her foetus.¹⁷

An important theme of the Commission’s final report is that legal processes can produce and exacerbate harms for women experiencing family violence. On the other hand, the report also recognises the capacity of the law to provide comfort and support to victims, through, for example, the administration of victims of crimes compensation.¹⁸ In order to minimise the law’s potential to exacerbate harm, and to harness its beneficial capability, a number of reforms are needed. The report details 227 recommendations, many of which address specific industries, professions or sectors other than the law (health care systems and policy), some of which call for greater integration and co-operation across organisations (including legal and non-legal settings) and others that are specific to the law. It is these latter recommendations for reform that are of particular interest to us and of relevance to this special issue. Legal systems and procedures can increase the stress, anxiety and suffering of family victims, with potentially significant implications for their mental health. In general terms, the report identified a ‘siloing’ of some services that can make victims’ experiences more difficult¹⁹ and a degree of systemic complexity that often results in added stress as victims seek to navigate multiple (but largely disconnected) services. The Commission recommended that the degree of coordination and collaboration across different sectors be improved: a finding that has implications for lawyers who work in family violence, and, by extension, for the health and wellbeing of women. There have already been some moves in this direction, through, for example, the development of ‘advocacy-health alliances’.²⁰ These alliances involve lawyers and healthcare workers working together more closely, including in the realm of family violence.²¹ We anticipate that alliances of this nature will gain momentum over the months and years to come.

The Commission also made a number of recommendations for more specific legislative reform. These include:

• Law reforms that recognise the important role employers can play in supporting victims. Specifically, the Commission recommended mandated entitlement to family violence leave in workplaces (see Recommendation 191).

• An amendment to the Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic) to establish a rebuttable presumption whereby, if an applicant for a family violence intervention order has a child who has experienced family violence, the child be protected by an order (Recommendation 22).

• In recognition of the fact that current court processes are often traumatic and that they may compound a victim’s suffering, the Commission recommended increasing the availability of appropriate and carefully designed restorative justice processes for victims who are interested in that option (Recommendation 122).

• Given the complexity of family violence and the need for suitably qualified and trained experts, a move towards specialist family courts (see Recommendations 60 and 61);

• The Commission noted that victims may experience heightened anxiety through, for example, a lack of pre-hearing support.²² The anxiety and stress that victims often experience when navigating legal and criminal justice settings can also be compounded by spatial issues, including inappropriate layouts and court designs, including some that result in victims and perpetrators sitting together in court waiting areas.²³ In recognition of these and associated stressors, the Commission recommended an amendment to section 69 of the Family Violence Protection Act 2008 (Vic) and to section 363 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (Vic) to provide scope for family violence victims to give evidence remotely (Recommendation 71).

These are just a few of the extensive recommendations for reform delivered by the Commission. In a pleasing development, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has committed to implementing all 227 recommendations in their entirety.²⁴ We will hopefully see comprehensive systemic and legal reforms in Victoria in the years to come (especially over the next 12 months given that the report includes an indicative timeline for many of the reforms) with, we hope, potentially significant benefits for women and children. The Royal Commission represents a very visible, high profile and long overdue attempt to grapple with the complex interplay between health, gender, law and policy, and to redress the harmful consequences of family violence for the community. As a large-scale domestic intervention, it is perhaps unparalleled in Victorian – if not Australian – history. Moves to address women’s health through the law are also afoot internationally, a point to which we now turn.

Sexual and reproductive health: progress at the international level

On 4 March 2016 the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (‘Committee’) released General Comment No 22 focusing on the Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health.²⁵ In this General Comment the Committee recognises that the ‘right to sexual and reproductive health is an integral part of the right to health enshrined in article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’²⁶ (as well as other international human rights instruments). The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is part of what is commonly referred to as the International Bill of Rights.²⁷ As such, it is one of the foundational treaties of the modern international human rights regime. In light of the integral role played by the ICESCR in the international human rights legal system, it is significant that the Committee decided to release a General Comment specifically dedicated to acknowledging that around the globe, for many women and girls, attainment of the full enjoyment of the right to sexual and reproductive health remains a distant hope.²⁸

In addition to acknowledging the problem, the Committee also dedicates some time to elucidating the legal obligations of States parties in the context of the right to sexual and reproductive health. Pursuant to article 2.1 of ICESCR, ‘States parties must take steps to the maximum of available resources with a view to achieving progressively the full realisation of the right to sexual and reproductive health.’²⁹ The fact that the ICESCR allows for progressive realisation of rights and allows resource constraints to be factored into the extent to which States must act to realise those rights is contentious. After all, there is no similar provision in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The fact that the ICESCR provides States with more ‘wiggle room’ than the ICCPR as regards the fulfilment of obligations under the convention is significant from a gendered perspective because violations of economic, social and cultural rights disproportionately affect women.³⁰

Violations of economic and social rights that disproportionately affect women include the right to work and the right to an adequate standard of living. The Montréal Principles on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights observe that economic downturns often hit women harder than men as the first jobs to be cut are frequently casual and part time positions which are primarily occupied by women.³¹ These rights may also be compromised in circumstances where women (and it is mainly women) dedicate themselves to the unpaid work of caring, whether for children or sick or elderly relatives, thereby forfeiting current income as well as superannuation benefits.³² Literature abounds regarding the feminisation of poverty, and Australia is no exception. In its 2014 Report on poverty in Australia, for example, the Australian Council of Social Service noted that ‘[w]omen are significantly more likely to experience poverty than men’.³³ Accordingly, from a gendered perspective, the ‘wiggle room’ given to States in their implementation of ICESCR obligations (as compared with ICCPR obligations) is noteworthy.³⁴

Nonetheless, this General Comment is important in that it is a clear effort by the Committee to communicate to States that, despite the vague obligatory language of the ICESCR, they retain certain responsibilities. With respect to the lee-way for States to realise rights progressively, the Committee notes that ‘while its full realization may be achieved progressively, steps towards that goal must be taken immediately or within a reasonably short time.’³⁵ Thus the Committee is stressing that while rights may be achieved progressively, there can be no justification for a failure to take any steps towards realising the rights contained in the convention. Further, the Committee emphasises that ‘[s]uch steps should be deliberate, concrete and targeted, using all appropriate means, particularly including, but not limited to, the adoption of legislative and budgetary measures’.³⁶ This reveals an expectation on the part of the Committee that States adopt legal means to ensure the protection and fulfilment of the rights contained in the convention, such as the right to sexual and reproductive health. As well as communicating the expectation that States take immediate steps to fulfil their obligations, the Committee also uses this General Comment as an opportunity to clarify that States are expected to ‘obtain the maximum available resources’ to comply with obligations under the convention.³⁷ This limits the capacity of States to claim ‘no money’ as an excuse for failing to provide women with adequate sexual and reproductive health services.

As part of its discussion of the general legal obligations of States parties, the Committee focuses on the obligation on States to eliminate discrimination itself, as well as the social conditions which may give rise to discrimination in the context of the right to sexual and reproductive health.³⁸ Discrimination may take many forms. In the context of sexual and reproductive health, discrimination against women is pervasive; the criminalisation of abortion provides a useful illustration. Laws which criminalise abortion may be considered a form of discrimination against women given that only women become pregnant and therefore it is women’s lives that are inevitably affected by an unwanted pregnancy.³⁹ Social conditions are also relevant in this context as the consequences for women of an unwanted pregnancy may not be as severe but for deficits in State provided child care facilities and the social expectation that women perform the role of child rearers (in addition to child bearers).⁴⁰ Accordingly, the focus of the Committee on the problem of discrimination in the context of the right to sexual and reproductive health, and its explicit endorsement of ‘special measures to overcome long-standing discrimination and entrenched stereotypes’ is momentous.⁴¹

Finally, it is worth noting that in addition to setting out the general legal obligations of States, this General Comment also sets out the specific legal obligations of States; expressly the obligations of States parties to ‘respect, protect and fulfil the right to sexual and reproductive health of everyone.’⁴² The obligation to respect the right to sexual and reproductive health requires States to refrain from interfering with the exercise of such rights and to remove barriers to accessing such rights. For example, States should decriminalise abortion and remove legal requirements for spousal authorisation.⁴³ The obligation to protect the right to sexual and reproductive health requires States to prevent third parties from interfering with a person’s right to sexual and reproductive health. For example, a doctor’s right to conscientious objection must be regulated so as to ensure that it does not inhibit access to sexual or reproductive health.⁴⁴ In Victoria, for instance, a doctor’s right to conscientious objection to abortion is subject to what is known as the ‘obligation to refer’.⁴⁵ Finally, the ‘obligation to fulfil requires States to adopt appropriate legislative, administrative, budgetary, judicial, promotional and other measures to ensure the full realisation of the right to sexual and reproductive health.’⁴⁶ This includes universal access to the full range of health care services without discrimination as well as removal of barriers to access, including those of a financial, geographical and social nature. For example, in Australia, whereas abortion is generally available in urban areas, women who live in certain rural areas may encounter challenges in accessing these services.

As this brief commentary illustrates, this General Comment is an example of the way that law (in this case international human rights law) may serve to enhance women’s health. These two developments (at the domestic and international) level discussed above represent a clear statement on the important role that the law can play in supporting and fostering women’s health. Some of the articles in this Special Issue explore other opportunities for reform and progress, and illustrate the way that women’s health may be enhanced through various legal, social, medical and policy measures. Other articles in this Special Issue illustrate that way that women’s health may be undermined through such measures. All articles examine the complex interplay between law, health and gender as well as a range of other factors.

Gender, health and law: multiple perspectives

The first article in this special issue takes us into the world of lawyering and legal practice, through a rich study of the ways that lawyers understand and account for their work on ‘addiction’.⁴⁷ Combining interview data from lawyers working in Australia and Canada with theoretical insights from French science and technology studies scholar Bruno Latour, Kate Seear and Suzanne Fraser argue that the law and legal processes work to stabilise addiction as a ‘disease’, and that this has major gender dimensions and implications. Seear and Fraser explore how lawyers engage in debates about the meaning and role of alcohol and other drug addiction, in multiple legal settings, including family violence. They argue that lawyers often make claims about addiction, responsibility and agency in ways that disproportionately and adversely effect women. Their work raises questions about the way that gender is constituted – or made – in the humdrum of everyday legal practice. Noting that lawyers often make claims about addiction and gender in the absence of any formal legal training or education in the area, and often with little judicial oversight, Seear and Fraser conclude with a series of questions and recommendations for future work in this space.

Approaches to family violence move from the periphery (as in Seear and Fraser’s work) to the centre in kylie valentine and Jan Breckenridge’s critical analysis of family violence policy, advocacy and the state.⁴⁸ At a time when domestic and family violence (DFV) is being cast as a national emergency, comparable in some respects with the global terrorist threat, valentine and Breckenridge consider how policy, advocacy and discourse in relation to DFV is changing, and explore some of the risks and benefits of those shifts. Noting that feminist advocates have engaged in a long-standing tradition of privileging victims’ accounts of their own experience of DFV, valentine and Breckenridge critically explore the implications of the fact that DFV is becoming increasingly visible at a time when evidence-based policy is becoming ascendant. Recounting critiques of evidence-based policies, and the changing landscape of advocacy in Australia, the authors consider promising developments in interventions that support women’s economic security, safe and permanent housing, and employment. They also consider ways that the effects of DFV can be distributed and constituted across multiple domains, including workplaces and legal systems. They conclude with a call for an integrated, multi-systemic response to DFV that acknowledges the importance of empowerment, agency, and meeting victims’ practical needs.

Moving on from DFV, the Special Issue then turns its attention to a different form of violence against women, in the form of involuntary sterilisation. Radhika Coomaraswamy, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences, has made the following comment on involuntary sterilisation:

[a] severe violation of women’s reproductive rights, forced sterilization is a method of medical control of a woman’s fertility without the consent of a women. Essentially involving the battery of a woman – violating her physical integrity and security – forced sterilization constitutes violence against women.⁴⁹

Ronli Sifris’ article demonstrates that involuntary sterilisation procedures are generally a manifestation of intersectional discrimination and the medical profession’s use and abuse of power.⁵⁰ She uses the example of involuntary sterilisation to illuminate the multiple forms of discrimination experienced by society’s most marginalised and vulnerable people and to discuss the role of social hierarchy and existing power structures in compounding and perpetuating the expression of discrimination. Sifris begins her analysis by referencing the power of law before considering the power of the medical profession in the context of society. She then analyses the gendered dimension of this power, specifically considering the example of involuntary sterilisation and discussing the importance of adopting an approach which views this issue through an intersectional lens. Finally, she invokes a number of specific examples of involuntary sterilisation procedures being performed on marginalised groups of women to make the discussion more tangible.

Considering the question of reproduction from a very different angle, Isabel Karpin’s article focuses on the role and implications of preconception genetic testing and screening.⁵¹ Her specific interest is in the development of expanded carrier screening: a form of genetic testing that allows a person to ascertain their risk of having a child with certain genetic conditions prior to conception, and to test for hundreds of possible genetic mutations simultaneously. Karpin argues that there is very little legislative or regulatory control in Australia over these technologies, and that they have a capacity to make people vulnerable to discrimination. As she points out, medical conceptualisations of ‘disability’ are often inflected by gendered and raced assumptions about normalcy, health and the body. Karpin argues that expanded carrier screening raises particular gender concerns. On the one hand, the burden of testing tends to fall disproportionately upon women. On the other, she argues that there is a significant potential for a gendered approach to testing (through a focus, for example, on the presence of genes such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, which may have discriminatory implications for women). Karpin concludes with a call for a careful and considered strategy for addressing the potentially harmful implications of this new technology, and the possibly disproportionate impacts for certain groups, including women.

Penelope Weller’s contribution highlights the need for a more nuanced approach to gender in another field, in this instance mental health. Weller’s article engages with the gap in knowledge about gender and the experience of violence in mental health research, law and policy. Adopting an intersectional theoretical approach, she argues for greater recognition of, and responsiveness to, violence and its consequences. On Weller’s account, intersectionality assists here because it facilitates our engagement with the ‘complexity of violence as a ubiquitous social phenomenon’, and ‘provides a theoretical and methodological bridge between the individual and the social’.⁵² Weller focuses on women in the mental health system, making the case for ‘women focused perspectives in mental health law, policy and service provision’.⁵³ She makes this case by reference to gendered trends in mental health research, the mental health impacts of violence and associated policy responses, and Australia’s human rights obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Weller presents a compelling argument that the provision of women-centred mental health services is consistent and compatible with these obligations, along with intersectionality and consumer-based perspectives.

In her article, Genevieve Grant also takes a fresh look at an area long recognised as perpetuating gender inequities, despite the law’s formal neutrality.⁵⁴ Thirty years ago, Reg Graycar began to draw attention to the gendered nature of judges’ personal injury damages assessments, and particularly their treatment of women’s work. Grant identifies that more recently, reforms in personal injury law have entrenched the tort threshold, a newer but equally pervasive technology of injury assessment that has attracted little gender-based critique. Tort thresholds set a minimum standard of injury that must be exceeded for a plaintiff to claim damages. In doing so, they communicate what injuries and losses are valued by law. Through empirical analysis of threshold decisions, Grant explores how judges assess and construct the impact of injury on plaintiffs’ paid and unpaid work. This analysis identifies both similarities with, and differences to, Graycar’s earlier accounts of damages assessments. Importantly, the continued treatment of unpaid domestic and care work as non-economic in character perpetuates law’s traditional hierarchy of losses, privileging those perceived as economically valuable and impacting on autonomy. Grant argues that legislators, lawyers and judges should be attentive to the likely differential impact of thresholds on women in formulating and applying these tools.

Finally, Heather Douglas and Kath Kerr’s Review Essay examines three recent books centring upon reproductive health, freedom and law to consider themes of abortion, law reform and decision-making (Douglas and Kerr, 2016):

• Rebecca J Cook et al (2014) Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective: Cases and Controversies, University of Pennsylvania Press

• Erin L Nelson (2013) Law, Policy and Reproductive Autonomy, Hart Publishing

• Ronli Sifris (2014) Reproductive Freedom, Torture and International Human Rights: Challenging the Masculinisation of Torture, Routledge

Through their review, Douglas and Kerr urge us to draw insight from the regulation of reproductive rights in other jurisdictions to inform law reform in Australia. The authors examine debates around pre-abortion intervention and requirements, abortion criminalisation, conscientious objection by health service providers and access zones, highlighting both the promise and limitations of law for protecting women’s reproductive freedom.

To sum up, this special issue examines the intersection between women’s health and the law from multiple perspectives. It considers an array of health issues, ranging from addiction to the effects of family violence to involuntary sterilisation, preconception genetic testing, mental health and compensable injury. It also includes a review of three recently published books addressing the theme of reproductive rights and freedoms. Some of the health issues considered in the articles that comprise this special issue, such as involuntary sterilisation and the effects of family violence, have a disproportionate impact on women. Others, such as mental disorder and addiction have a significant impact on both men and women but nevertheless manifest certain interesting gendered dimensions which are highlighted in this compilation. Further, some of the articles, such as that of valentine and Breckenridge, illustrate the way that women’s health may be enhanced through various legal, social, medical and policy measures. Other articles, such as that of Grant and Sifris illustrate the way that women’s health may be undermined through these measures. Ultimately, the special issue provides a rich, interdisciplinary tapestry of the intersection between women’s health, the law and a multitude of other domains which gives the reader an opportunity to consider complex social problems from a broad, nuanced and multifaceted perspective.

ORCiD

Ronli Sifris http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4072-3284

Kate Seear http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0886-7069

Genevieve Grant http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7071-6707

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council [grant number DE160100134].

Notes

1 We sincerely thank all of our contributors and the anonymous reviewers, without whom this special issue would not have been possible. We are particularly grateful to Dr Tim Peters and Dr Ed Mussawir for their patience, guidance and support throughout the process of putting this issue together.

2 R v L (1991) 174 CLR 379.

3 Baron (2015), p 1456.

4 The following Statutes enshrine abortion as a crime: Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) ss 82-84; Criminal Code 1899 (Qld) ss 224-226; Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA) ss 81-82; Criminal Code Act Compilation Act 1913 (WA) s 199; Criminal Code Act 1983 (NT) ss 208B-208C.

5 Major and O'Brien (2005), p 393.

6 Davey (2016).

7 Davidson and Davey (2016).

8 State of Victoria (2016a)., http://www.rcfv.com.au/MediaLibraries/RCFamilyViolence/UploadedDocs/Terms-of-Reference.pdf.`

9 State of Victoria (2016a).

10 State of Victoria (2016a).

11 This data is from 2013 to 2014: Crime Statistics Agency (2016).

12 State of Victoria (2016b), Vol. 1, p 32.

13 A much more detailed overview of the specific health implications of family violence appears in the final Report, including, in particular, Volume 4, which deals with health services and mental health.

14 See Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (2016).

15 State of Victoria (2016b), Vol. 1, p 38.

16 Braaf (2011).

17 Bachus, Mezey and Bewley (2006).

18 Victoria’s crimes compensation scheme is established by the Victims of Crime Assistance Act 1996 (Vic) and is administered by the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal.

19 State of Victoria (2016b), Vol. 1 p 24.

20 For a more detailed introduction to advocacy-health alliances, see Noble (2012).

21 One example is the Inner Melbourne Community Legal Centre’s health-justice partnership. For an overview, see Cooper (2014).

22 State of Victoria (2016b), Vol. 3, p 129.

23 State of Victoria (2016b), Vol. 3, p 170.

24 Melissa Davey (2016).

25 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016).

26 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), para 1.

27 ‘The International Bill of Human Rights consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (June 1996).

28 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016).

29 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), para 33.

30 See, for example, Sifris (2016b).

31 International Federation for Human Rights (December 2002).

32 See, for example, Cassells et al (2009).

33 Australian Council of Social Service (2014), p 10.

34 For a discussion of the absence of economic and social rights from the Victorian Charter of Rights see Sifris (2016b).

35 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), para 33.

36 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), para 33.

37 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), para 37.

38 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), para 9.

39 Sifris (2014), Chapter 5.

40 Sifris (2014), Chapter 5.

41 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), para 36.

42 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), para 39.

43 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), paras 40–41.

44 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), paras 42–43.

45 For a discussion of the ‘obligation to refer’ in both Victorian and Tasmanian legislation see Sifris (2015).

46 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016), para 45.

47 Seear and Fraser (2016).

48 valentine and Breckenridge (2016).

49 Coomaraswamy (1999) para 51 (emphasis added).

50 Sifris (2016a).

51 Karpin (2016).

52 Weller (2016) p 90.

53 Weller (2016) p 88.

54 Grant (2016).