Human Rights Watch today condemned the Australian government's decision to restrict cooperation with U.N. bodies critical of Australian human rights practices.
"In terms of human rights criticism, the Howard government's motto seems to be ‘It is better to give than to receive'," said Sidney Jones, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "It doesn't do much for protection of human rights if any government can change the rules to avoid criticism of itself."
On August 29, three Australian ministers -- Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Attorney-General Daryl Williams, and Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Philip Ruddock -- issued a joint statement calling for a "complete overhaul" of U.N. human rights treaty bodies to "ensure that Australia gets a better deal" from them.
Many of the major international human rights treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), have provisions establishing committees to ensure the treaties' implementation. These committees are known as U.N. treaty bodies. The Howard government was particularly angered by criticism from three such committees. In 1999, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination warned that government policies risked violating the rights of indigenous communities. In 1998 and 2000, the government was embarrassed by two high profile interventions by the Committee Against Torture to stop the return of asylum seekers until it had considered their claims that they would face torture if returned to the countries they had fled. And in July 2000, the Human Rights Committee of the ICCPR expressed serious concerns about Australia's mandatory sentencing laws, the marginalization of Aboriginal people, and the mandatory detention of asylum seekers.
As a result, the Howard government says it will only agree to visits to Australia by treaty bodies when "there is a compelling reason to do so," and it will reject "unwarranted requests from treaty committees to delay removal of unsuccessful asylum seekers from Australia." It says it will not sign or ratify a new optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women which establishes a complaint procedure, and it will fight against a greater role for nongovernmental organizations in the treaty bodies' activities.
Human Rights Watch said the Howard government's decision to distance itself from the U.N. treaty bodies was particularly disappointing because in many areas, Australia has been a champion of human rights. Its support for an International Criminal Court to try perpetrators of grave abuses is one important example.
Like the United States, however, Australia's support for human rights abroad has not always translated into good policies at home. Australian anger over critical U.N. scrutiny of mandatory sentencing, treatment of asylum-seekers, and Aboriginal policies has its parallel in U.S. resentment of U.N. investigation of capital punishment by U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions.
"The Australian decision on the U.N. is particularly unfortunate, because it will add a hitherto respectable voice to those of repressive governments seeking to undermine the international system for protection of human rights," Jones said.
