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RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: New Human Rights Chair Comes Under Fire
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8, 2004 (IPS) - Australia, which will chair the U.N.'s supreme human rights body investigating violations by member states worldwide, has come under fire for abuses in its own backyard.
The nation will begin to preside over the powerful 53-member U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva starting next Monday.
''Australia is well known in the human rights community as a gross violator of the Refugees Convention and Protocol, and it is shameless for them to be taking over the chair of the human rights commission,'' says Francis A. Boyle, professor of Law at the University of Illinois College of Law and a former member of the board of directors of Amnesty International USA.
''Australia should be chastised, not promoted by the human rights commission,'' Boyle told IPS. ''Obviously, this is an attempt to rehabilitate Australia.''
Rory Mungoven, global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the country'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 industrialised country, setting terrible precedents that threaten to undermine the system of refugee protection worldwide,'' he added in a statement.
Mungoven said the Australian government has aggressively promoted the policies internationally, even questioning the basis of the Refugee Convention.
Canberra is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, which endorse the fundamental right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution, and set out internationally recognised obligations of states towards refugees.
Australia, which succeeds Libya as the new chairman, will preside over a five-week session of the commission Mar. 15-Apr. 23. The body is expected to examine and adopt a wide range of resolutions on human rights issues in specific countries and on broader thematic issues worldwide.
Last year, several organisations, including HRW and Amnesty International (AI), blasted the commission for electing Libya as its chair, a country described as one of the world's worst violators of human rights.
Since the chairmanship is subject to geographical rotation, Australia is taking over the post this year from Africa. Libya was endorsed for chairmanship at a summit meeting of African heads of state in Durban, South Africa.
Before Tripoli was elected to chair the body, HRW appealed to African nations to reverse their decision. ''Countries with dreadful rights records should never be in charge of chairing the commission on Human Rights,'' it said.
Australia was nominated for this year's post by the western group of countries.
Speaking from Canberra, a spokesman for the Australian foreign ministry told IPS the country has ''a very proud record in the international human rights arena for many, many years. And we have made a real contribution to international progress in human rights''.
''Criticisms and derogatory comments on Australia's human rights policies are misplaced, contentious and totally wrong,'' added the spokesman, who did not want to be named.
''The United Nations and those interested in human rights more broadly should really get their priorities straight and concentrate on issues of gross human rights abuses in various parts of the world that need to be tackled, investigated and corrected,'' he added.
Boyle said nations such as the United States and Britain backed Australia's chairmanship for their own selfish reasons. ''Probably a favour by (U.S. President George) Bush and (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair for supporting them on their illegal invasion of Iraq,'' he added.
''It just demonstrates how corrupt the entire U.N. system is becoming under U.S. hegemony,'' added Boyle, author of 'Destroying World Order'.
Mungoven, on the other hand, views the chairmanship as a chance for Australia to restore its ''battered reputation'', as well as that of the U.N. commission.
He said that riots in Australia's immigration detention centres have focused international attention on the country's ''harsh treatment of undocumented migrants''.
''Australia should take this opportunity to re-examine its own human rights record, and set a positive example during its term as chair,'' he added.
As a first step, Mungoven said, Australia should issue an open invitation for U.N. human rights investigators to visit the country, including its immigration detention centres.
He pointed out that the country's immigration detention regime was criticised both by the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and an envoy of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights during visits to Australia in 2002.
Moreover, he said, Australia joined the ranks 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, in 2002.
Last year AI complained Australia had transferred more than 1,800 asylum seekers to the tiny Pacific island of Nauru, to Manus Islands in Papua New Guinea and to Australia's Christmas Island.
''The Pacific solution threatens the principle of international solidarity on which international refugee protection depends,'' it said.
''Such practices create two classes of asylum states: the rich and the powerful states that select whom they will accept as refugees, and the rest who are compelled to host large numbers, including people returned from the rich countries in the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere,'' the group added.
The most severe criticism has been directed at Australia's decision to turn away boats of asylum seekers and forcing them back into international waters.
In doing so, say human rights activists, Australia is violating the fundamental principle of non-refoulement - the obligation not to send an asylum seeker to a country where his or her life or freedom would be threatened.
Asylum seekers who have been barred from entering Australia include refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in the Middle East and South Asia.
In 2001, Australia prevented the Norwegian vessel Tampa from landing on its shores. The boat carried over 400 asylum seekers who had been rescued by the Norwegians from a sinking Indonesian vessel.
(END)
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