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A new Treaty Authority between First Peoples and the Victorian government is a vital step towards a treaty
Last week the Victorian government demonstrated its commitment to build an equal relationship with First Peoples. A new bill has been labeled in the Victorian parliament to advance the treaty process.
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Human rights and election campaigns: Never the twain shall meet?
It’s easy to tell we’re in a federal election campaign – politicians are everywhere, parading around in high-vis vests and kissing babies who just want to be back in their parents’ arms. You can also tell politicians are on the campaign trail by what they’re not talking about. They’re not talking about human rights –…
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After the Sharma decision, we’re once again asking what does the human right to a healthy environment mean in Australia?
On 7 April 2022 the globe marks World Health Day and this year’s theme —’Our Planet, Our Health’—draws attention to ‘the single biggest threat facing humanity … [t]he climate crisis’. Australians need no reminders about the already devastating impacts of climate change with record-breaking floods having recently displaced thousands and the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires…
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Interstate human rights jurisprudence confirms the certainty and coherence of the Victorian Charter, but we can learn a thing or two from Queensland
The Supreme Court of Queensland recently delivered a landmark judgment (the Owen-D’Arcy judgment) on the operation of the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld). The HRA is Australia’s most recently enacted human rights statute joining those already in force in Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. These human rights statutes mark a change from the traditional…
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Few reflections on the right to privacy in the digital age under the African human rights law
No right has preoccupied as many conversations in the digital age than the right to privacy. This is mainly owing to the fact that an individual’s privacy is being subjected to constant intrusion by States and non-state actors, thereby leaving the individual’s lives in a ‘goldfish bowl’ situation. At global and regional levels, countries are…
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Indigenous people cannot be aliens in their own land. Why challenging this fact (again) is so concerning
By Melissa Castan and Kate Galloway Last year, we wrote an overview of the High Court decision in Love, Thoms v Commonwealth. The case concerned whether the Commonwealth had the power to deport two Aboriginal men who were born overseas. Neither man was an Australian citizen under Commonwealth law. If the men were deemed “aliens”, then…
Castan Centre for Human Rights Law 