{"title":"Building human rights in the region through the role of horizontal transnational networks: the role of the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions","authors":"Catherine Renshaw, K. Fitzpatrick","doi":"10.1080/1323238X.2021.2011829","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238X.2021.2011829","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In 2007, Andrew Byrnes and Andrea Durbach received a grant from the Australian Research Council to investigate the role played by the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions in promoting international human rights norms across the Asia Pacific. The project’s central question was whether, for the vast and heterogeneous Asia Pacific, a regional network of national human rights bodies might offer a more effective form of human rights governance than a supra-state regional human rights system. Fieldwork was carried out in every sub-region of the Asia Pacific: Fiji, Samoa, New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia, Nepal, India, South Korea, Jordan and Palestine. A decade after the project’s conclusion, we analyse the project’s impact and influence. We conclude that the key intuition that drove the project forward, which was that strong and independent institutions within states are the most effective bulwarks against rights violations, remains as valid now as it was a decade ago. In a region that still lacks an overarching human rights institution, networks of national human rights institutions are an original and creative response to the challenges of human rights governance into the twenty-first century.","PeriodicalId":37430,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Human Rights","volume":"27 1","pages":"422 - 441"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49063311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The impact of public interest litigation: the case of socio-economic rights","authors":"M. Langford","doi":"10.1080/1323238X.2022.2030039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238X.2022.2030039","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the global turn to rights, courts are often reified as central actors in processes of social transformation. In this respect, it is worth recalling the clear-eyed and grounded perspective of Andrea Durbach, who emphasised both the potency and limitation of litigation, as well as the diverse functions of courts. This Festschrift essay assesses the transformative power of socio-economic rights litigation. It begins by setting out the different reasons as to why we would expect (or not) judicial intervention on socio-economic rights to engender social change and then distils some central methodological parameters for assessing and undertaking empirical research. This is followed by an overview of the literature with case studies on housing rights litigation in South Africa and education rights in the United States. This reveals significant variance in material and political outcomes for applicant individuals, communities and social movements but points to key determinants of ‘success’—especially the role of social mobilisation, creation of broad-based alliances, and smart remedies.","PeriodicalId":37430,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Human Rights","volume":"27 1","pages":"505 - 531"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47930797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Travelling with Durbach: notes from a trip to South Africa researching reparations for victims of sexual violence","authors":"Lucy Geddes","doi":"10.1080/1323238x.2021.2003580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238x.2021.2003580","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In January 2015, I had the privilege of accompanying Professor Andrea Durbach to conduct fieldwork in South Africa for a major Australian Research Council-funded project ‘Combating sexual violence against women post-conflict through “transformative” reparations: problems and prospects’. In this short autoethnographic paper, I offer a series of reflections on this formative fieldwork experience—the first time I had participated in the design of qualitative interviews for the purposes of academic research—and witnessed the careful way Durbach approached this trip. Throughout the piece, I interweave personal notes, correspondence and other literature, which anchor me to this place and experience. In doing so, I seek to explore the tensions of designing fieldwork when, as researchers, we cannot escape ourselves: our positionality necessarily informs both the substance and mode of any academic inquiry. During our time together in South Africa, I observed how Durbach negotiated issues of identity, access and positionality; the impact these complexities had on oft-times blurred relationships between interviewer and interlocutor; and the ways in which interrogating these questions can assist researchers to (re)produce knowledge on questions of violence in sensitive, collaborative and innovative ways.","PeriodicalId":37430,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Human Rights","volume":"27 1","pages":"591 - 596"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45086262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reflections on my friendship with Andrea (Andy) Durbach","authors":"Penelope E. Andrews","doi":"10.1080/1323238X.2021.2009311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238X.2021.2009311","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper is a reflection on my friendship with Andrea Durbach.","PeriodicalId":37430,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Human Rights","volume":"27 1","pages":"586 - 590"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49414222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Transformative gender justice: criminal proceedings for conflict-related sexual violence in Guatemala and Peru","authors":"J. Boesten","doi":"10.1080/1323238X.2021.2013701","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238X.2021.2013701","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Drawing on Andrea Durbach’s work around post-conflict transformative gender justice, this paper asks if criminal justice for conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) can bring about transformative gender justice in Latin America. The paper offers a comparative analysis of two judicial cases of conflict-related rape: the Sepur Zarco case in Guatemala and the Manta y Vilca case in Peru. The paper argues that domestic courts can have important transformative effects on victim-survivors, their families and on criminal justice practices for CRSV, when international standards for evidentiary practice are adhered to within the specific local context of the case in question, as was the case of Sepur Zarco. If international standards of evidentiary practice are not considered, it is much less likely that such cases are transformative, in fact, the process might do harm, as in the case of Manta y Vilca. Therefore, criminal justice processes are not by default transformative, but good practice can be important to transformative gender justice by providing redress for victim-survivors and affected communities, unsettling hierarchies and building accountability.","PeriodicalId":37430,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Human Rights","volume":"27 1","pages":"487 - 504"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41886375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Australia in the UN Human Rights Council through the eyes of Andrew Byrnes and Andrea Durbach","authors":"H. Charlesworth","doi":"10.1080/1323238X.2021.2010300","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238X.2021.2010300","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A recurring theme in both Andrew Byrnes and Andrea (Andy) Durbach’s research and activism is the uncertain status of the international human rights system in Australian law, and they have worked in many different capacities to encourage Australian lawmakers to take international standards seriously. Overall, Australia seems to assume that the international human rights system is designed to bring pressure on other countries to improve their protection of human rights, notably those outside the fold of Western democracies, and that the system has little to offer Australia itself. In this paper, guided by the critical insights of Andrew and Andy’s work, I review Australia’s response to the third cycle of the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review in 2021. It provides a case study of the techniques Australia has developed to deflect human rights scrutiny.","PeriodicalId":37430,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Human Rights","volume":"27 1","pages":"575 - 585"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47730960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Putting Byrnes and Hong Kong in a time machine: human rights in 2021 under the shadow of Beijing’s National Security Law","authors":"S. Deva","doi":"10.1080/1323238X.2021.2016021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238X.2021.2016021","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT During his academic journey in Hong Kong, Professor Andrew Byrnes wrote extensively on various human rights issues in Hong Kong, including the role of the Bill of Rights Ordinance (BORO) in protecting and promoting human rights. When Byrnes left the University of Hong Kong in 2001, a national security law was contemplated, but perhaps not the type of National Security Law (NSL) that Beijing gifted to Hong Kong on 30 June 2020. Drawing on Byrnes’ human rights writings about Hong Kong, this article critically examines the impact of the NSL on human rights in Hong Kong protected under the Basic Law and the BORO. It also discusses the role of Hong Kong courts in minimising the adverse impact of the NSL on human rights. I argue that courts should rely on the basic structure doctrine to declare unconstitutional the relevant parts of the NSL. However, as Hong Kong courts may not be willing to opt for such an option, they should at least treat the NSL as a law of ‘suspect constitutionality’ and interpret its vague and wide provisions narrowly to strike a balance between national security considerations and the protection of human rights.","PeriodicalId":37430,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Human Rights","volume":"27 1","pages":"467 - 486"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47411117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Voluntarily ‘opting-in’ – the Australian approach to seeking human rights compliance from non-government entities","authors":"Louis Schetzer","doi":"10.1080/1323238x.2021.2010364","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238x.2021.2010364","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines the methods employed in the human rights acts that have been legislated at the Australian State/Territory level to encourage compliance with human rights amongst non-government entities. The article considers the provisions in the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT) and the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) that enable non-government organisations to voluntarily ‘opt-in’ to the statutory obligations of a public authority to act in compliance with human rights. The intention behind these provisions was to encourage the voluntary assumption by private sector entities of the human rights standards expected of public authorities. This article examines how the ACT provision has had limited take-up and has not been successful in encouraging ‘opt-in’ by private sector organisations. The organisations that have opted-in are predominantly non-government, service oriented or advocacy organisations that already had a strong commitment to human rights. While this may indicate that the opt-in provision has not been successful in fulfiling its goal, it has achieved some modest outcomes in terms of setting an example for human rights compliance for non-government organisations. There are also some important lessons that should be heeded in terms of promotion and maintaining government commitment to develop a human rights culture.","PeriodicalId":37430,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Human Rights","volume":"27 1","pages":"402 - 421"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47629045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Damages in the Australian human rights context","authors":"Ciarán Murphy","doi":"10.1080/1323238X.2021.1997093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238X.2021.1997093","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article engages with the relationship between statutory rights and damages in Australia. It begins by examining the architecture of the rights statutes in Victoria, Queensland, and the Australian Capital Territory to then determine the justification that Australian legislatures had for precluding damages. Two potential rationales for the non-provision of damages are canvassed: pragmatic-political concerns about government liability and principled concerns about the co-existence of damages and the Commonwealth dialogue model. The article demonstrates that these concerns are not borne out in practice and that the current remedial architecture is inadequate to achieve the statutes’ purposes. It argues that damages play a fundamental role in protecting statutory rights and analyses the suitability of two damages models to the Australian context.","PeriodicalId":37430,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Human Rights","volume":"27 1","pages":"311 - 329"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49324979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Children’s rights in adoption from out-of-home care: how well do legislative frameworks accommodate them?","authors":"Julia M. Zodins, L. Morley, S. Collings, E. Russ","doi":"10.1080/1323238X.2021.1996759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1323238X.2021.1996759","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the Australian legislative, policy and procedural framework regulating adoption from out-of-home care (OOHC) and the relationship to children’s rights. As a signatory to the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child, Australia has agreed to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights. However, because child protection is a State and Territory responsibility, these frameworks lack consistency in the way that decisions are made or how children’s interests are protected. We draw on findings from a qualitative study that examined Australian adoption laws and policies and consider how these align with a rights-based approach to adoption from OOHC. These were examined through the lens of values perspectives, which helped clarify how children’s rights including birth family relationships, identity and participation were represented. The results highlighted that some rights were treated in a discretionary manner, key differences in the extent to which jurisdictions protected, respected and fulfiled these rights and the conditions that determined when they were carried out. Notably, some jurisdictions were not adequately adhering to rights related to children’s participation in the adoption process or protecting and respecting rights to identity, culture and family relationships, especially in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The findings confirm the need to uphold children’s rights through policy and in practice.","PeriodicalId":37430,"journal":{"name":"Australian Journal of Human Rights","volume":"27 1","pages":"293 - 310"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46090833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}