Australia: UN Human Rights Recommendations Ignored

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A session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland, February 26, 2024. © 2024 Hannes P Albert/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo

(Sydney), Australia has refused to commit to reforms for the incarceration of children, offshore detention of asylum seekers, and phasing out fossil fuels, despite repeated calls to do so from United Nations member countries, Human Rights Watch said today.

In its written response to its fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council, the Albanese Labor government accepted just 128 of the 332 recommendations it received (38 percent). This is a lower acceptance rate than at the 2021 UPR, when the former Coalition government accepted 51 percent of the recommendations.

“Australia claims it takes its human rights obligations seriously, yet ignored the majority of the recommendations resulting from the UN review process,” said Annabel Hennessy, Australia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “For years, other countries have called on Australia to stop incarcerating children as young as 10, end the offshore detention of asylum seekers, and take real action on climate change, yet Australia still refuses to act.”

The UPR is a United Nations Human Rights Council process in which the human rights records of member states are reviewed by other states every five years.

In its response to recommendations received during the UPR, Australia said it recognized that it “must do more to address the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the criminal justice system” and was “committed to improving youth justice outcomes.”

However, these claims were undermined by Australia’s refusal to accept recommendations from 27 countries to raise the age of criminal responsibility. States have called on Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibility every UPR review cycle.

Currently, children as young as 10 can be held criminally responsible and incarcerated in most Australian jurisdictions. This is well below the 14-year-old minimum age of criminal responsibility recommended by United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

First Nations children make up approximately 60 percent of those incarcerated in Australia, though they make up only about 6 percent of the child population.

Australia also did not accept recommendations from states calling for it to enact a national Human Rights Act. Australia does not have a national Human Rights Act or charter and a parliamentary inquiry recently found that while there is some protection against human rights violations in existing laws, there is an inadequate “piecemeal approach.”

On refugees and asylum seekers, Australia claimed it was committed to ensuring its migration system respected its international obligations and the human rights of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. However, it did not accept recommendations explicitly calling on it to end its offshore processing regime under which asylum seekers are forcibly transferred to the Pacific island nation of Nauru.

In response to recommendations calling for greater action on climate change, Australia said it was “playing a leadership role in global climate action” through its role as president of negotiations for COP31, this year’s annual UN climate conference, is due to be held in late 2026.

Australia accepted only 3 of 17 recommendations calling for greater action on climate change. The climate recommendations Australia did not accept included those from Pacific neighboring states, which are facing some of the greatest human rights threats because of the climate crisis. The Marshall Islands urged Australia to accelerate its transition away from fossil fuels, while Fiji called for it to legislate the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

“While Australia claims it is a global climate leader, the Albanese government continues to approve new fossil fuel projects,” Hennessy said. “Rather than more hollow words, Australia should match its rhetoric with action and with concrete plans to transition away from fossil fuels ahead of the UN climate change conference.”