https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0236-6503
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ABSTRACT
A recurring theme in both Andrew Byrnes and Andrea (Andy) Durbach’s research and activism is the uncertain status of the international human rights system in Australian law, and they have worked in many different capacities to encourage Australian lawmakers to take international standards seriously. Overall, Australia seems to assume that the international human rights system is designed to bring pressure on other countries to improve their protection of human rights, notably those outside the fold of Western democracies, and that the system has little to offer Australia itself. In this paper, guided by the critical insights of Andrew and Andy’s work, I review Australia’s response to the third cycle of the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review in 2021. It provides a case study of the techniques Australia has developed to deflect human rights scrutiny.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Louise Chappell and Ben Golder for their helpful comments on an earlier draft and to Deylan Kilic-Aidani for his assistance with the references.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. For an analysis of the first two cycles see Charlesworth (Citation2021).
2. Australia’s UPR documents are accessible through the Australian Attorney-General’s website (Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department Citation2021).
3. There was some debate on what proportion had been partially implemented. The Australian Human Rights Commission estimated that 65 per cent of the accepted recommendations had been partially implemented, while a joint NGO Submission reported partial implementation of just 19.7 per cent (Human Rights Law Centre, Kingsford Legal Centre, and National Association of Community Legal Centres Citation2015).
4. There was a general leap in the number of recommendations in the second UPR cycle, compared to the first (Gujadhur and Limon Citation2016).
5. For example, the Report of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces was tabled on 5 March 2020 (Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department Citation2021, para 39). It took over a year for the government to respond (see Australian Human Rights Commission Citation2021).
6. Fiona McGaughey notes that Australia used four rubrics in relation to recommendations from its first UPR, but that this increased to six at its second review (McGaughey Citation2017, 447). The government’s ‘monitoring tool’ indicates that Australia later reduced its responses to recommendations back to four categories: ‘Accepts’, ‘Notes’, ‘Notes (will consider further)’ and ‘Notes (will not consider further at this time’) (Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department Citation2018).
7. Australia’s ‘federal declaration’ to the ICCPR (28 January 1993) takes a similar position (United Nations Treaty Collection Citation1993).
8. This issue had also been raised in the second UPR cycle (UN Human Rights Council Citation2016, recommendations 178–179).
9. In July 2021, the matter was again deferred by the Council of Attorneys-General (Gooley Citation2021).
10. The website is not regularly updated, and a researcher needs to check for recent documents on data bases such as that of UPR Info (Citation2021).
11. The webpage notes Australia accepts 171 of the recommendations, up from 150 accepted at the time of the second cycle. The increase is due to Australia’s ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture in 2018.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Hilary Charlesworth
Hilary Charlesworth is Harrison Moore Professor of Law and Melbourne Laureate Professor at Melbourne Law School. She is also Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University.