The United Nations Human Rights Council is tasked with the universal protection and promotion of human rights, and is the UN’s principal human rights body. Yet it is being used by known rights abusers…
The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a French ban on the wearing of face veils in public. The French Senate voted on the ban in 2010 and people who wear the burqa or niqab in public risk being…
July 2 2014, halfway through the second term of America’s first African American president, marked the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act being signed into law by US President Lyndon Baines Johnson…
The Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Independent newspapers have all run with the story that Charles Taylor is suing the British government over his right to a family life, bringing him rather more media…
Sudanese protesters against the al-Bashir regime.
EPA/Marwan Ali
The case of Meriam Ibrahim, a pregnant woman sentenced to death for apostasy by a Khartoum court, has rightly refocused international attention on the dire state of human rights in Sudan. Ibrahim’s prosecution…
Europe has the right to be forgotten, Google does not have the right to forget Europe.
Eric Fischer
The Court of Justice of the European Union has issued a ruling that affects privacy and data protection for millions of people. But the ruling is also significant because of what it says about whether…
Righting human rights wrongs has never been high on the Sri Lankan agenda despite international pressures.
EPA/M.A. Pushpa Kumara
The Sri Lankan government is on the defensive again over human rights. It is hoping to ride out a diplomatic storm after failing to thwart a UN Human Rights Council vote approving an international investigation…
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has released a report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. It outlines the main areas of concern and needs for action, and sets out a framework…
George Brandis wants to protect the ‘right to be a bigot’ in the name of free speech. But the government may seek to remove such a right in relation to corporations.
AAP/Dan Himbrechts
The federal government has indicated that it is considering repealing an exemption in the Competition and Consumer Act that provides for boycotts of companies on environmental grounds. The government is…
Free speech is a fundamental human right, but it cannot be absolute.
AAP/Howard Jones
The debate over the need for “rebalancing” of the Australian Human Rights Commission raises fascinating questions about the nature of human rights as a public ideal. Federal attorney-general George Brandis…
European Court of Human Rights is putting pressure on governments to take domestic abuse seriously.
Jamie Parker
According to Women’s Aid, at least one in four women experience domestic violence in their lifetime and between one in eight and one in 10 experience it annually. Domestic violence clearly violates various…
Federal attorney-general George Brandis wants to champion a ‘classical liberal’ approach to human rights, but what does this actually mean?
AAP/Daniel Munoz
Tim Wilson, Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, has announced that he will take a “classical liberal” approach to human rights. There is a fair degree of confusion about what this means. Classical liberalism…
There are few aspirations that almost all of the globe’s human population shares. Good health is one, and I believe healthcare to be a fundamental human right. Illness impedes individuals from supporting…
Attorney-General George Brandis has no qualms about “shackling” free speech to protect property, hence his presence at a copyright forum this month, yet he rejects other constraints.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Tim Wilson has finally taken up his post as Human Rights Commissioner after controversy about his appointment late last year. Many questioned the suitability of a candidate without relevant legal-administrative…
The United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) report into human rights abuses in North Korea, released on Monday by panel chairman Michael Kirby, highlights the impact of the government’s extreme…
Running out of time: Khmer Rouge defendant Nuon Chea.
Wikimedia Commons
Peter Manning, London School of Economics and Political Science
More than 30 years after they were deposed, the leaders of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge are on trial in the country they once ruled. The body set up to prosecute them, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts…
BFFs: IOC President Thomas Bach and Vladimir Putin.
David Goldman/AP
Nationalism is the main event at any Olympic Games, and the Olympic industry relies on the goosebumps effects of the sporting spectacle to divert public attention from its less attractive underbelly, in…
Xu Zhiyong, jailed for four years. for inciting public disorder.
Wikimedia Commons
In the past decade, US and UK universities have embarked on a program of developing formal relationships, exchanges, and partnerships with their counterparts in China. No scholar interested in promoting…
Who said what? ‘Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs’ and ‘Necessity has no law’.
Wikimedia Commons
Imagine if there were a premier league for tyrants and totalitarian dictators. Who exactly was the biggest genocidal maniac? Was it Stalin, or Hitler, or Pol Pot, or…? However you add it up, especially…
Attorney-general George Brandis has put his imprimatur on the Human Rights Commission with the appointment of the IPA’s Tim Wilson as Human Rights Commissioner.
AAP/Daniel Munoz
There is something both utterly predictable and wonderfully larrikin about federal attorney-general George Brandis’ appointment of the Institute for Public Affairs’ (IPA) self-described “classic liberal…