TONIGHT: Australia’s Universal Periodic Review at the UNHRC
TONIGHT: Australia’s Universal Periodic Review at the UNHRC: This evening from 7.00 pm AEDT Australia’s human rights record will face scrutiny when the Australian Government appears before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva for its major human rights review, known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
The UPR is a mechanism of the UNHRC which reviews the human rights records of all 193 nations that are members of the United Nations. It is a state-driven peer review mechanism which happens every four and a half years, meaning that countries interact with other countries, non-government organisations (NGO) and national human rights institutions to have their human rights record scrutinised.
The UPR will examine the extent to which Australia is complying with its international human rights obligations under the UN Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), international human rights treaties and other commitments.
The review is based on information provided by the Australian Government; information from independent UN human rights experts and other UN entities; as well as information from the Australian Human Rights Commission and NGOs.
Civil society plays a critical role in informing the UPR review process. Submissions have been lodged by a wide variety of organisations, representing Australia’s diverse civil society, including ALHR:
- ALHR submitted a shadow report to the UN specifically drawing attention to a number of human rights issues impacting women and girls in Australia;
- ALHR is also proud to have been a lead author contributing to the Joint NGO Report on behalf of the Australian NGO Coalition, coordinated by the Human Rights Law Centre, Kingsford Legal Centre UNSW, Indigenous Peoples Organisation Australia, and Community Legal Centres Australia and endorsed by more than 100 organisations.
Our recommendations and those of other civil society organisations and the Australian Human Rights Commission are cited in a summary report prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ahead of Australia’s appearance: Read it here
You can watch the livestream of Australia’s appearance at the UN from 7pm-10:30pm (AEDT) via the webcast at:
Australia continues to slide backwards on human rights. We were a founding member of the UN and one of eight nations involved in drafting the UDHR, yet we remain an outlier as the only Western liberal democracy bereft of a national framework to legally protect the rights and freedoms of all Australians.
It’s time for Australia to walk the talk with a federal Human Rights Act and Human Rights Acts in all states and territories.