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Australia’s human rights performance was in the spotlight tonight as the Australian Government appeared before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva for its major human rights review that happens every four to five years.

Australia’s human rights performance will be in the spotlight tonight as the Australian Government appears before the Human Rights Council in Geneva for its major human rights review that happens every four to five years.

In 2021 Australia will have its human rights record assessed at the United Nations Human Rights Council in a process known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The UPR provides an opportunity for other nations to identify human rights problems in Australia and make recommendations about possible solutions.

The Australian Government should support an urgent resolution in the UN Human Rights Council for an independent investigation into systemic racism, police brutality and violence against peaceful protest in the US, say Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and human rights organisations.

An alliance of civil society and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and senior academics have told the Senate Committee tasked with investigating the Morrison Government's response to COVID-19 that there must be greater oversight of places of detention both during the pandemic and beyond.

More than 200 not-for-profit and community organisations have backed a major report calling on the Australian Government to strengthen its commitment to human rights in its laws, policies and practices.

Abdul Aziz Muhamat, a refugee and human rights defender, addressed the United Nations in Geneva to call out the Morrison Government’s continued cruel treatment of people still held on Nauru and in Papua New Guinea.

As International Women’s Day nears, the UN has heard that Australia is set to undermine people’s healthcare, while giving religious bodies unprecedented privileges to discriminate with laws that will make it harder for women to access contraception and abortion.

Australia’s human rights record is set to face intense scrutiny in 2020 when the Australian Government appears before the Human Rights Council in Geneva for its major four yearly human rights review.

There is a grave risk the Morrison Government is “stumbling zombie-like into a digital welfare dystopia” if serious changes aren’t made to Australia’s social security system, the United Nations expert on poverty has warned.     

The Australian Government has used its voice at the UN Human Rights Council to raise concerns of serious human rights abuses committed by Saudi authorities.

A landmark, new standard has been set in international human rights guidelines with the expert UN Child Rights Committee recommending laws be changed to ensure that children under the age of 16 years "may not legally be deprived of their liberty".

Watch the statement a 12 year old Arrernte/Garrwa child from central Australia delivered to the UN Human Rights Council.

This week at the United Nations in Geneva, the Committee on the Rights of the Child is reviewing the Australian Government’s track record when it comes to upholding and protecting the rights of children.

Tomorrow in Geneva, a 12 year old Arrernte/Garrwa boy from central Australia, will give a heartfelt speech at the world’s peak human rights body with a simple message for Australian governments: stop sending 10 year old children to to prison.

The Human Rights Law Centre joined 14 other non-governmental organisations to express concern about the governments of Human Rights Council members attacking and discrediting UN experts when human rights abuses by Council members are called out.

The Human Rights Law Centre and Equality Australia have joined over 1300 non-governmental organisations from 174 countries in calling for the renewal of the UN role focusing on the rights of LGBTQ people around the world.

The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture announced they will visit Australia to shine a light on abuses in places of detention, including adult prisons, youth prisons, police lock-ups and immigration detention facilities.

This week the United Nations heard a scathing statement about a discriminatory Federal Government parenting scheme that targets Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents and single mothers.

Overnight the United Nations Human Rights Council heard of the alarming rates at which Australian governments are imprisoning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.

Abdul Aziz Muhamat, a refugee and human rights defender, addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva overnight to call out the Morrison Government’s continued cruel treatment of over 800 people still held on Nauru and Manus Island.

UN experts have once again urged the Australian Government to immediately provide healthcare to over 800 refugees in its care on Manus and Nauru and transfer those identified as requiring urgent care to Australia.

In collaboration with international NGOs, the Human Rights Law Centre has written to UN member countries to plea for the UN’s human rights mechanisms to be adequately funded.

The Morrison Government has failed to sign on to an International Women’s Day statement at the United Nations calling for access to safe abortions, comprehensive sexuality education and sexual reproductive health.

On International Women’s Day the UN will hear that the Australian Government is penalising single mothers with babies as young as six months through a punitive program that is making life harder for parents.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, used her address to the 40th session of the UN Human Rights Council to highlight some of the world’s worst human rights abuses and called out the Australian Government’s treatment of refugees and people seeking asylum.

Abdul Aziz Muhamat, a refugee and human rights defender, who has spent nearly six years detained by the Australian Government on Manus Island, overnight addressed the UN Human Rights Council to highlight the Morrison Government’s inhumane treatment of people seeking asylum.

The decision from Australia’s Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, to impose targeted financial sanctions and travel bans against five Myanmar military officers responsible for human rights violations committed by units under their command has been welcomed by the Australian Council for International Development and the Human Rights Law Centre.

The Australian Government should immediately end its engagement with Myanmar’s military and impose sanctions on abusive military generals, the Human Rights Law Centre and the Australian Council for International Development said in a joint statement at the UN Human Rights Council overnight.

“As the Australian Government sits here on this Council, professing its commitment to human rights, it is indefinitely imprisoning 102 children in its offshore refugee camp on Nauru,” Daniel Webb told the UN Human Rights Council.