Byrnes, Andrew; Durbach, Andrea --- "Continuing Engagement: the AHRC looks forward" [2007] HRightsDef 4; (2007) 16(1) Human Rights Defender 6

• Continuing Engagement: The AHRC looks forward

Continuing Engagement: The AHRC looks forward

Andrew Byrnes and Andrea Durbach

Professor Garth Nettheim’s extraordinary contribution to the AHRC is to be celebrated as much as the continued existence and growth of the AHRC itself. As Garth writes, the Centre, although located in the Faculty of Law, has always had a deliberate inter-disciplinary focus. With the appointment of new Director Andrea Durbach in mid-2004, the Centre’s aims and objectives were revised to highlight a focus on economic, social and cultural rights and to create opportunities for interdisciplinary research and teaching collaboration on contemporary human rights issues.

To this end the Centre Working Group was established, whose members include AHRC Associates from the School of Public Health and Community Medicine and the Faculties of the Built Environment, Arts and Social Sciences, Commerce and Economics and the Faculty of Law. The Working Group currently concentrates its work in four key areas: health and human rights, environmental justice, trade and corporate accountability, and international human rights and humanitarian law.

The Centre continues to publish the only human rights journal in Australia, the Australian Journal of Human Rights and the Human Rights Defender. In 2005, the AHRC and the Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions published The Road to a Remedy: Current Issues in the Litigation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

In 2005, the Centre’s inaugural Annual Public Lecture was presented by celebrated Australian and international author David Malouf, who addressed the topic, Challenging Indifference. The 2006 Annual Lecture, Human Rights, Human Security - protecting rights in the national interest was delivered by Professor Conor Gearty, Rausing Director, Centre for the Study of Human Rights, London School of Economics. Over the last 2 years, the AHRC seminar series has featured an impressive list of speakers, including the Hon David Coltart, Shadow Minister for Justice, Zimbabwe; Professor Eli Salzberger, Dean, Faculty of Law, Haifa University; Professor Daniel Tarantola, Chair of Health and Human Rights, UNSW; Ms Shanthi Dairiam, international human rights activist and member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women; Mr Roger Smith, Executive Director of JUSTICE, UK; Professor Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health.

To celebrate the AHRC’s 21st Anniversary, the Centre will host a major symposium on climate change and human rights in May this year. Securing the Environment will feature speakers whose research suggests that climate change and environmental degradation present critical challenges to the protection of human rights and the overall security of the nation.

The Faculty of Law now offers an expanded human rights teaching program including courses such as Transnational Business and Human Rights, Contemporary Issues in Human Rights, European Human Rights Law and Institutions, International Humanitarian Law, and Disability Discrimination Law. In July this year, Centre Associates will present a new Masters level course, Health, Development and Human Rights, a joint program developed the UNSW Initiative for Health and Human Rights (combining presenters from the Faculties of Medicine, Law and Arts and Social Sciences). The Centre and Faculty also host a number of higher degree research students undertaking Master’s or doctoral programs on human rights issues ranging from the right to water under international law to disability and human rights.

In November 2006, the AHRC was invited by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the UN Association of China to select five students to travel to Sichuan University in Chengdu, China to participate in a Model UN Meeting. Graduates of the Faculty of Law and AHRC student interns can now apply for the Human Rights Fellowship, an initiative of AHRC and the NSW Legal Aid Commission, to gain experience in the practice of human rights law working at the Commission’s Human Rights Unit of the NSW Legal Aid. The Centre continues to offer opportunities for students to undertake internships with the Australian Journal of Human Rights, the Human Rights Defender, and on specific research projects. Recent projects have involved work on Hong Kong racial discrimination legislation, the consistency of constitutional challenge procedures and the death penalty with international law, and the nature of State obligations under CEDAW.

Over the last two years, the AHRC has also been engaged by external organisations to undertake projects including, the Mineral Policy Institute (report on the protection of rights in minerals and energy projects in Indonesia); the National Judicial College in Beijing and the AusAid Technical Assistance Co-operation Program (development of a human rights training manual for judges); the Asia Pacific Forum on National Human Rights Institutions (draft a major paper how NHRIs have addressed the right to education in APF member countries); the Vietnam Women’s Union (to conduct a study tour on the development, implementation and community impact of gender legislation in Australia in anticipation of the adoption of similar legislation in Vietnam); the Diplomacy Training Program (to develop and deliver an advocacy program on Trade, Corporate Accountability and Human Rights); the International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific, Malaysia (to draft a general recommendation on Article 2 of CEDAW).

Centre Associates have also been engaged in policy development at the international level, including participating in the negotiations on the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2006.

The Centre’s work ranges across the full UNSW and Law Faculty spectrum: undertaking research and teaching, engaging with the community on contemporary policy issues, and providing opportunities for a new generation of students who wish to devote their energies to the ideal of ensuring that all people, everywhere, might one day fully enjoy their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Andrew Byrnes is a Professor in the Faculty of Law, UNSW and Chairperson of the AHRC Management Committee. Andrea Durbach is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law, UNSW and Director of the Australian Human Rights Centre.