Castan Centre for Human Rights Law

Author: Castan Centre

  • The 2015 Human Rights Report – Prisoners’ rights: a missed opportunity for the Victorian Charter

    By Dr Julie Debeljak This piece is featured in the 2015 Castan Centre Human Rights Report. We will be featuring the articles on the blog throughout the month of May.  The Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act (Charter) allows people to complain to the courts about human rights abuses. Unfortunately, judges and lawyers have often failed…

  • Open letter in support of the Australian Human Rights Commission

    The following open letter was sent to editors of a number of Australian media publications regarding recent political attacks on the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs. Its signatories included a number of Castan Centre academics. If you would like to add your name in support of this letter, please do…

  • Have You Got That Right?

    Today we are proud to launch an innovative series of videos called Have You Got That Right? As the tag-line says, these videos will answer important human rights questions “quickly, clearly and in a way that won’t put you to sleep”. The project will be broken into a number of 10-episode series, each with a…

  • Open letter to the Attorney-General regarding the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture

    The following is an open letter to the Commonwealth Attorney-General, The Hon. George Brandis QC, signed by 64 organisations including the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. The letter is dated 15 September 2014. Dear Attorney, Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment  We, the undersigned…

  • Child workers in Vietnam face further exploitation

    Vietnamese children as young as 11 are working for up to 18 hours a day in harsh and abusive conditions, often unpaid and denied communication with their families, a study shows. The study, led by Professor Susan Kneebone of Monash University’s Castan Centre for Human Rights Law in collaboration with the children’s foundation Blue Dragon, looks at the causes and…

  • 2014 Castan Human Rights Report: Indigenous rights – hastening too slowly

    By Melissa Castan and Stephen Gray In 2013 the then opposition leader, Tony Abbott, announced that if elected he would be the ‘Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs’, raising hopes that law reform and better human rights protection for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be central to the government’s agenda. To some extent, they…