Australia-UN relations hit new low

AAP ^ | 05/07/03

[nypokerface]

Australia's relations with United Nations human rights committees have plummeted to new lows because of government recalcitrance on international law, according to a new report.

A study by the left-wing think-tank, the Australia Institute, said the government's hard line on asylum seekers during the 2001 Tampa standoff had seen relations with UN human rights committees reach unprecedented lows.

The Pacific Solution to process asylum seekers offshore in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, and failings with indigenous affairs, were damaging Australia's international reputation, the report said.

"The government has had a stunning public relations success in side-lining human rights by exploiting economic insecurity and more directly terrorism, and painting human rights supporters as a politically correct minority, anti-nationalist and at odds with the so-called forgotten anglo-saxon majority," report author Spencer Zifcak said.

Professor Zifcak said Australia helped lead the push to set up the UN and an international legal regime following World War II.

"Our rejection of it now is contributing to its corrosion," he said.

"The long-term harm to standards of human rights internationally is incalculable."

Prof Zifcak, who is vice president of the International Commission of Jurists, said he had reached his conclusions after analysing Australia's role in recent and bitter altercations with the UN on human rights.

Foremost among the disputes, he said, was the August 2001 crisis on the Norwegian freighter Tampa, when the government refused to allow in 438 mostly Afghan asylum seekers rescued at sea.

The 10 day standoff only came to an end when the government struck a deal to have the people processed overseas under the Pacific Solution.

The boarding and takeover of the ship by 49 armed members of the SAS drew criticism from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Mary Robinson and the European parliament.

Mrs Robinson also annoyed the government by sending an envoy to investigate claims they were in breach of the human rights convention by detaining the children of asylum seekers in Woomera.

Prof Zifcak said the government had moved away from international human rights law and would inevitably encourage human rights abuses in less democratic states.

While the UN human rights committees were in need of reform, the solution lay in strengthening the system, rather than retreating from it, he said.

"The answer lies not in making it easier for recalcitrant states like Australia to retreat down an anglo-saxon yellow-brick road," Prof Zifcak said.

[stubernx98]

That is the 'What Human Rights Committee'

[RippleFire]

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[McGavin999]

Anyone ever notice that the only ones the Human Rights Commission every seems to attack is western countries with the best human rights records? Time to get rid of them, they're a bunch of lazy slobs living off the wealth of the countries that pay their salaries. They do absolutely nothing to help people like the Iraqis or other people who are the prisoners of their own countries.

[dalebert]

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[armed_in_sydney]

Any genuine refugees know the process to get asylum in Australia.

Having the ability to pay thousands of dollars to Indonesian people smugglers indicates that you are not a genuine refugee and such boats are duly intercepted off the coast.