The relationship between advocacy organisations based in Western capitals and their marketed constituency of marginalised and disadvantaged African groups is tenuous. What then, is the goal?
Thousands of people with mental illness are shackled in Indonesia even though the practice has long been banned. Why does the practice persist and how can we eliminate it once and for all?
Non-state actors in Indonesia use violence and intimidation against a critical civil society as a means for the political and business elites to maintain wealth and power.
It is important for Australia that messages on human rights in Geneva are backed up with strong and unequivocal public and private action when Malcolm Turnbull visits China.
Claims of whitewashing have been levelled against an Australian university for encouraging students to use particular language about Indigenous peoples. It was the right thing to do.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has penned an essay in Quadrant defending his government’s stance on national security. It betrays an extraordinarily open contempt for international human rights law…
In the wake of the Arab Spring the international community lauded Tunisia’s political transition to democracy. But a plethora of challenges may threaten democratic consolidation in the country.
The Australian Law Reform Commission has given George Brandis a report that does all that it reasonably could, while falling well short of what it was asked to do.
Western leaders and activists should show humility and allow themselves to be guided by local organisations if they wish to be effective in promoting same-sex rights.
The tradition of republicanism offered us civil religion, a foundation of belief that could counter any politics or policy that demands sacrifice in this world to be compensated in some “beyond”.
The UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) released its reasons in Hicks v Australia on February 16, 2016, in which it found that Australia had breached David Hicks’ right to be free from arbitrary detention…
Doctors at Brisbane’s Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital are refusing to release a 12-month-old asylum seeker, highlighting a murky intersection of politics, ethics and law.
As Australia’s special envoy for human rights, Philip Ruddock will have the chance to change the world instead of listening to other people make suggestions about how it might be done.