Castan Centre for Human Rights Law

Category: Auslaw

  • Sinking boats: a reason to reconsider compassion?

    by Sarah Joseph The issue of asylum seekers arriving by boat to Australia has been massively politicised for over ten years.  The arguments in this debate are well set. On one side is the rhetoric of hoards of queue-jumping illegal immigrants breaching our border security.  On the other is the view that these are people…

  • Mining, Security and Human Rights

    By Joanna Kyriakakis Earlier this year I wrote a piece about the potential for Australian laws to regulate and oversee the human rights impacts of Australian mining companies operating abroad. Anvil Mining and Oceana Gold were two examples I gave where Australian mining interests had come under the spotlight for alleged human rights abuses connected…

  • A silly season blog: Tintin and Human Rights

    by Sarah Joseph So the new Tintin movie, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, opens in Australia on Boxing Day. As a die-hard fan of Tintin, the creation of Georges Remi known as Hergé (1907-1983), I will have to see it, though I have serious doubts that the movie can remotely match…

  • Time’s Person of the Year: The Protester

    by Sarah Joseph* Time Magazine has just announced its Person of the Year.  Appropriately, it is “The Protester”. The signature characteristic of 2011 has been the extraordinary outbreak of protests, demonstrations, riots, and even overthrows of government. Most obviously, there has been the “Arab Spring”. Two long-standing dictators, Ben-Ali and Mubarak, were, remarkably, overthrown in…

  • It’s Time to recognise Indigenous Australia

    By Melissa Castan This morning The Age reported that the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples has concluded its deliberations on reform proposals.  While we wait on the release of their  final report and recommendations its worth thinking again about the issues involved in altering the Commoneath Constitution in…

  • Rolling the Federal Anti-Discrimination Acts into One ‘Great Big New Law’

    By Adam Fletcher As part of its National Human Rights Framework released in April last year, the Federal Government announced its commitment to re-engage with the international human rights system and take several measures here in Australia to improve protection of, and respect for, human rights. One of these measures was the consolidation of the…