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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
More than 500 high-profile names, including authors, musicians and five Nobel laureates, have signed a petition to the United Nations calling for a bill of digital rights to be developed in the wake of…
Kamiar Alaei, University at Albany, State University of New York
Brothers, Kamiar and Arash Alaei were imprisoned in Iran in 2008 for their work with HIV. Under a new government, Iran’s health minister, Hassan Hashemi, has blamed “misinformation and unscientific claims…
Businesses, government and civil society met this month in Medan, Indonesia, for the 11th annual Roundtable meeting on sustainable palm oil. While orangutan conservation organisations dominated conversations…
Australian prime minister Tony Abbott announced earlier this week that he would not join his Canadian, Indian and Mauritian counterparts in boycotting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM…
The Council of Europe’s resolution earlier this month to prohibit the circumcision of infant boys for religious reasons has ignited another round to the “foreskin wars”. This time it’s about the rights…
The news that Peter Chester and George McGeoch have had their Supreme Court appeal against the ban on prison inmates voting dismissed will cause few people on the outside to lose much sleep - in fact the…
Climate change has been considered under many lenses – economic, geopolitical, diplomatic and developmental. However, human rights are rarely considered. Instead, they are a peripheral concern for the…
Russia’s overreaction in prosecuting Greenpeace protesters, including the two journalists, is set to unfold into an international scandal that will seriously damage country’s global reputation. So far…
When considering contemporary human rights issues in Australia – our denial of refugee rights, the disproportionate number of Indigenous children in juvenile detention and racial vilification on public…
George Clooney revealed details last week about “his” spy satellite over Sudan, which he funds to keep an eye on the Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who has been accused of war crimes. The Satellite…
Abu Qatada was deported to Jordan from the UK in the early hours of Sunday morning to face terrorism charges. For the British home secretary, Theresa May, it was a triumph in the face of a judiciary which…