Human rights recognise the inherent value of every person, regardless of our respective backgrounds, where we live, what we look like, what we think or what we believe. These rights are based on universal principles of dignity, equality and mutual respect, and are shared across cultures, religions and philosophies. Human rights are about being treated fairly, treating others fairly and being able to make choices about our own lives. Australia was recently elected to a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, however its own human rights record is not without controversy, attracting international and domestic scrutiny. What are Australia's international and domestic human rights obligations and how are they being addressed in relation to a number of issues such as asylum seeker detention, racial discrimination, free speech, indigenous advancement, juvenile incarceration, disability rights, gender equality and same-sex marriage? Does Australia need to lift its game on human rights if it is to be taken seriously on the international stage?

The first comprehensive account of Australian human rights from a political science perspective, it addresses the key debates in Australian political debates about human rights.

A scholarly examination of the most important human rights issues facing Australia today. For scholars and practitioners, and who wish to increase their understanding, it provides timely and provocative perspectives on the law and policy regarding the application of human rights standards in Australia. Authors from Monash University.

CONTENTS 1. Introduction - Fundamental Rights in the Age of Covid-19 -- Augusto Zimmermann & Joshua Forrester 2. Reflecting upon the Costs of Lockdown -- Rex Ahdar 3. Politicians, the Press and "Skin in the Game" -- James Allan 4. An Analysis of Victoria's Public Health Emergency Laws -- Morgan Begg 5. Only the Australian People Can Clean up the Mess: A Call for People's Constitutional Review -- David Flint AM 6. Covid-19, Border Restrictions and Section 92 of the Australian Constitution -- Anthony Gray 7. Blurred Lines Between Freedom of Religion and Protection of Public Health in Covid-19 Era - Italy and Poland in Comparative Perspective -- Weronika Kudla & Grzegorz Jan Blicharz 8. The Dictatorship of the Health Bureaucracy: Governments Must Stop Telling Us What Is for Our Own Good -- Rocco Loiacono 9. The Role of the State in the Protection of Public Health: The Covid-19 Pandemic -- Gabriël A. Moens AM 10. Corona, Culture, Caesar and Christ -- Bill Muehlenberg 11. The Age of Covid-19: Protecting Rights Matter -- Monika Nagel 12. Molinism, Covid-19 and Human Responsibility -- Johnny M. Sakr 13. Interposition: Magistrates as Shields against Tyranny -- Steven Alan Samson 14. Destroying Liberty: Government by Decree -- William Wagner 15. The Virus of Governmental Oppression: How the Australian Ruling Elites are Jeopardising both Democracy and our Health -- Augusto Zimmermann

Sixty years ago, the political theorist Hannah Arendt, an exiled Jew deprived of her German citizenship, observed that before people can enjoy any of the "inalienable" Rights of Man-before there can be any specific rights to education, work, voting, and so on-there must first be such a thing as "the right to have rights". The concept received little attention at the time, but in our age of mass deportations, Muslim bans, refugee crises, and extra-state war, the phrase has become the centre of a crucial and lively debate. Here five leading thinkers from varied disciplines-including history, law, politics, and literary studies-discuss the critical basis of rights and the meaning of radical democratic politics today.

Introduction : indigenous rights as human rights in central Australia -- The act of translation : emancipatory potential and apocryphal revelations -- Engendering social and cultural rights -- "Stop whinging and get on with it" : the shifting contours of gender equality (and equity) -- "Women go to the clinic and men go to jail" : the gendered indigenised subject of legal rights -- Therapy culture and the intentional subject -- Civil and political rights : is there space for an Aboriginal politics? -- International human rights forums and (east coast) indigenous activism

When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948, photography was considered a 'universal language' that would communicate across barriers of race and culture. 70 years later it is timely to examine the cultural impact of the framework of human rights through visual culture. Images are a crucial way of disseminating ideas, creating a sense of proximity between peoples across the globe, and reinforcing notions of a shared humanity. Yet visual culture can also define boundaries between people, supporting perceived hierarchies of race, gender, and culture, and justifying arguments for conquest and oppression. Only in recent years have scholars begun to argue for new notions of photography and culture that turn our attention to our responsibilities as viewers, or an ethics of spectatorship. This book explores questions surrounding the historical reception of human rights via imagery and its legacies in the present. Visualising Human Rights is about the diverse ways that visual images have been used to define, contest, or argue on behalf of human rights. It brings together leading scholars to examine visual practices surrounding human rights around the globe.

"Australia does not have a bill or charter of rights, which means there is no comprehensive law that enshrines human rights in Australia - even though these laws are standard in the rest of the developed world. So what does this mean for the rights of Australian citizens? In this fully revised fourth edition of A Charter of Rights for Australia, George Williams and Daniel Reynolds show that human rights are not adequately protected in Australia, contrary to what many of us think. Using some pressing examples, they demonstrate how the rights of people at the margins of our society are violated in often shocking ways. Several states and territories have adopted their own charters of rights, or have a charter well underway. This book's argument that the time has come to adopt a charter at the federal level is more urgent than ever."