Editors --- "CERD Committee Draft Decision on Australia - Digest" [1999] AUIndigLawRpr 55; (1999) 4(4) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 148

CERD Committee Draft Decision on Australia

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 55th session

CERD/C/55/Misc.31/Rev.3

16 August 1999

1. The Committee reaffirms the decisions concerning Australia which it took during its fifty-fourth session in March 1999.

2. In adopting these decisions, the Committee was prompted by its serious concern that, after having observed and welcomed over a period of time a progressive implementation of the Convention in relation to the land rights of indigenous peoples in Australia, the envisaged changes of policy as to the exercise of these rights risked creating an acute impairment of the rights thus recognised to the Australian indigenous communities. It considered in detail the information submitted and the arguments put forward by the State party.

3. The Committee takes note of the comments received from the State party which, in accordance with article 9 paragraph 2 of the Convention, will be included in the Committee's annual report for 1999 to the General Assembly.

4. The Committee decided to continue consideration of this matter, together with the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Periodic Reports of the State party, during its fifty-sixth session in March 2000.