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Torture Inc: how far do corporate interests stretch when human rights are at stake?
By Joanna Kyriakakis Imagine the following hypothetical. An Iranian company secretly supplies poison gas to the current Syrian regime in order to kill tens of thousands of Kurdish citizens. And imagine that some of the victims of the resulting gas attacks escape and seek asylum in the United States. Imagine also that the Iranian company…
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Freedom of Speech Going Backwards in Vietnam
By Andrew Nguyen On September 24, 2012 — exactly 30 years to the day after Vietnam became a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — three Vietnamese bloggers were convicted and sentenced to lengthy jail terms for “conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” after a short trial that lasted only a…
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Wiping the slate clean: historic convictions for gay sex must be expunged
By Paula Gerber Most of the current media relating to gay rights focuses on marriage equality. But for some older gay men, another issue is even more important. Sex between consenting men ceased to be a crime in Australia between 1975 and 1997, with South Australia being the first state to decriminalise sodomy and Tasmania…
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Lessons from the Chamberlain case: the human cost of wrongful conviction
By Joanna Kyriakakis The Azaria Chamberlain case is a reminder that the criminal justice system does get it wrong, with each error bearing its own human cost. Last week, the Northern Territory Coroner’s office concluded an inquest into the cause of death of baby Azaria Chamberlain near Uluru on the night of 17 August 1980.…
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Pirates Incorporated: The US Supreme Court to decide if corporations are liable under the Alien Tort Statute
By Joanna Kyriakakis Last Tuesday the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum. The case is significant as it will determine whether the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) applies to corporations. Dating from 1789, the ATS is a unique and controversial US law that allows non-US citizens to…
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Human Rights are not Luxuries
By Adam Fletcher I was saddened on the weekend to learn of the demise of the Geneva-based International Council on Human Rights Policy, which was announced by its board last Thursday. In the course of my human rights work both in Australia and Switzerland I’ve had the pleasure of drawing on many of ICHRP’s reports…
Castan Centre for Human Rights Law 
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