Australia: Set Example as New Chair of U.N. Rights Body

(Geneva, January 19, 2004) - Australia should provide strong leadership to restore the credibility of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Watch said today when the country was elected to chair the Commission's next annual session, which begins March 15.

"Australia should take this opportunity to re-examine its own human rights record, and set a positive example during its term as chair," said Rory Mungoven, global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "As a first step, Australia should issue an open invitation for U.N. human rights investigators to visit the country, including its immigration detention centers."  
 
Human Rights Watch said that other test issues for the Commission under Australia's leadership include:  

• creating a special mechanism to monitor the impact on human rights of the war on terrorism;  
   
  
• ensuring effective monitoring of the human rights situation in Iraq under military occupation;  
   
  
• ensuring that the U.N. human rights system tackles violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity;  
   
  
• and speaking out against the human rights abuses of powerful governments, including China and Russia.

Human Rights Watch warned that procedural wrangles over the election of Australia and Libya reflected a deeper crisis for the legitimacy and standing of the Commission. Abusive governments—such as China, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Cuba and Iran—have used their membership of the Commission to undermine its work. "This is a chance for Australia to restore its battered reputation, as well as that of the Commission," Mungoven said.  
 
Human Rights Watch has urged the Commission to develop some criteria to ensure that its membership is drawn from states that genuinely support human rights.  
 
These could include:  

• ratifying the main human rights treaties;  
   
  
• being up-to-date with reports to the United Nations on compliance with human rights conventions;  
   
  
• offering to cooperate fully with U.N. investigators;  
   
  
• and not having been condemned by the Commission in the recent past.

Human Rights Watch noted that Australia's once proud tradition of support for human rights had been replaced in recent years by hostility to the U.N. human rights system:  

• Australia has adopted some of the most radical and draconian measures against asylum seekers and refugees of any industrialized country, setting terrible precedents that threaten to undermine the system of refugee protection worldwide. Canberra has aggressively promoted these policies internationally, even questioning the basis of the Refugee Convention.  
   
  
• Australia is one of a handful of industrialized countries not to have issued an open invitation to the United Nations' human rights experts and investigative bodies. The Australian government faced criticism of its immigration detention regime by the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and an envoy of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights during their visits to Australia in 2002.  
   
  
• Australia joined the ranks of some of the most abusive governments—including China, Cuba, Iran and Sudan—in resisting the adoption of a new treaty establishing an international prison-inspection scheme to prevent torture.

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