Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Next month on 10 December we will recognise the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document was born from the horrors of the Second World War with the intention of ensuring that such events could not be repeated. This remarkable document, while not legally binding, encapsulated for the first time exactly what those human rights are. At the same time it was described by the General Assembly of the United Nations as ‘a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations’.

Forty-eight states voted in favour of the declaration, none against, with eight abstentions. In a statement following the voting the President of the General Assembly pointed out that adoption of the declaration was a remarkable achievement, a step forward in the great evolutionary process. It was the first occasion on which the organised community of nations had made a declaration of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The declaration consists of a preamble and 30 articles setting forth the human rights and fundamental freedoms to which all men and women everywhere in the world are entitled without any discrimination.

Article 1, which lays down the philosophy on which the declaration is based, reads:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

The 30 articles cover six different categories: political rights, such as the right to vote and to participate in government; civil rights, such as the right to freedom of opinion and expression; equality rights, such as the right to be free from discrimination; economic rights, such as the right to fair wages and safe working conditions; social rights, such as the right to education and to adequate health care; and cultural rights, such as the right to speak your native language.

Since 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been the fundamental source of motivation for international efforts to promote and protect human rights and the associated fundamental freedoms. It has set the direction for all subsequent efforts in the field of human rights; it has provided the basic philosophy for many legally binding international instruments designed to protect the rights and freedoms which it proclaims; and it has become the universal definition of human dignity and values.

After 1949, the declaration formed the foundation for the binding statements of rights: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Australia ratified the ICCPR in 1980 subject to certain reservations. Article 2(2) requires Australia to take all necessary legislative and other measures to give effect to the rights in the convention. Australia has also ratified the first optional protocol to the ICCPR. This means the United Nations Human Rights Committee can hear complaints from individuals who allege that the Australian government has violated their rights under the ICCPR. However, the findings of the Human Rights Committee are not enforceable.

In Australia we have seen achievements in our own human rights since 1948 through the abolition of the death penalty, military conscription, corporal punishment of children and the White Australia policy. On the other hand, it is important to remind ourselves of those whose rights are still being violated. In acknowledging the upcoming anniversary of the declaration, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a video presentation to launch the anniversary on 10 December 2007 that the declaration remained as relevant today as it was on the day it was adopted. But the fundamental freedoms enshrined in it were still not a reality for everyone.

On 19 November this year, a documentary was shown on SBS called A Well-Founded Fear, produced by the Edmund Rice Centre. Over the past six years the Edmund Rice Centre has conducted a systematic study into Australia’s treatment of rejected asylum seekers. Staff from the Edmund Rice Centre conducted interviews in 22 countries with over 250 people who were rejected as asylum seekers from Australia. The documentary outlines the reports of death, disappearance, imprisonment and torture of those whose lives have been spent in hiding, privation and despair. These are the people Australia removed after disallowing their claims for protection on refugee or humanitarian grounds. The documentary is based on the study by the Edmund Rice Centre, Deported to Danger. It is imperative that on this anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, those rights do not remain on paper. The declaration lays down universal rights that all of the world’s people should be able to achieve. (Time expired)