Castan Centre for Human Rights Law

Category: Auslaw

  • It’s time for accountability on Iraq

    Sarah Joseph On Wednesday we learnt that the report of the UK’s Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq war will not be delivered until the second half of 2013, over two years after its initial scheduled date of May 2011. The latest delay is caused by a stoush with Whitehall (the British public service) over the…

  • Video from the 2011 Castan Centre Conference – US Consul General Michael Thurston

    As many readers would know, the Castan Centre’s annual conference – Human Rights 2012 – is on this Friday in Melbourne.   The conference is a sellout, however you can follow the twitter feed through @castanevents (a real-time stream of the event) or @castancentre (where we’ll just tweet the highlights).  We will also start publishing…

  • An Insatiable Appetite for National Security

    By Adam Fletcher Sometimes it seems that the relationship between policy advisors and the Government is a bit like that between parents and children, with the children constantly clamouring for a larger allowance (read: slice of the budget). As in many families, there is inevitably tension between siblings, and so it is between those advocating…

  • Malaysia Solution: Outsourcing Our Moral Obligations

    By Andre Dao There’s a knock on the door. It’s late, and it has been a wild and stormy night. You wonder who could possibly be outside in this weather. Opening the door you find a young man collapsed on your doorstep, soaked and shivering. He wants to come inside, where it is warm and…

  • Media regulation debate clouded by simplistic notions of free speech

    Sarah Joseph Gosh. In the last year the media has been dominated by … the media. We’ve had the furore over Andrew Bolt and racial vilification law, the Finkelstein inquiry (and, less prominently, the Convergence Review), and now ructions at our two main newspaper stables, especially Fairfax. Internationally, we have seen the fall from grace of News International in the UK,…

  • UN Expert Committee says Australia must do much better at protecting children’s rights

    By Associate Professor Paula Gerber, Deputy Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (Committee) has just issued its five-yearly report on Australia’s compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Although couched in diplomatic language, the report contains damning findings regarding…