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The international community is increasingly concerned with indigenous rights. The essence of the claims that international law seeks to accommodate involves the ability of indigenous people to make decisions about social, cultural, economic and environmental matters in their region. This paper looks at some aspects of the human rights of indigenous Australians from that perspective. It contains three interlocking sections. The first section outlines the background to the Australian High Court decision in Wik Peoples v. Queensland in which the majority of the Court said that aboriginal native title to land could co-exist with pastoral lease activity. The second part looks at the furore provoked by this decision, advancing arguments about the media and political treatment of the issue. Here we contend, doubtless rhetorically ourselves, that the Australian government has moved from Wik to Wickedness in dealing with this issue. The third part looks at recent developments and offers some conclusions as to where the legal resolution of native title to land in Australia might have emerged. In our conclusion we also consider the direction of the political and legal debate since the Australian Labor Party led by Paul Keating lost the 1996 election in a landslide, and the increasing narrowness of an economically conservative political agenda. Our overall theme, which stems directly from that, is the paucity of the political debate over Australian indigenous human rights. Rhetoric has abounded and could prompt many questions about the political debate in Australia over this issue, and the obligations of politicians. Law has formed a vital background to this: at time lauded, at times rejected vehemently by the Government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the controversial cooperative migration control approach of extraterritorial asylum through a case study of the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre (RPC), in operation between 2012 and 2017. Rather than operating in a 'legal black hole', the RPC was the site of legal contestation, as refugees and their lawyers turned to various legal fora in an attempt to hold Australia, Papua New Guinea and private contractors responsible for violations of human rights law. The recent closure of the RPC, as a result of litigation in the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court, shows that just as States employ a broad range of deterrence policies, refugee lawyers have an emerging 'toolbox' at their disposal to challenge extraterritorial asylum policies. The Manus Island RPC experience holds lessons for future litigation on policies of extraterritorial asylum, presenting both opportunities and risks for policymakers and refugee lawyers alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a rise in the number of irregular maritime arrivals seeking refugee protection in Australia, and two successful legal challenges to their refugee processing policies, the Labor Government has resuscitated notorious aspects of the 'Pacific Solution' as part of a 'no advantage' policy. This strategy seeks to deter 'irregular" asylum seekers by treating them no more favourably than refugees seeking protection from overseas awaiting entry to Australia through regular refugee/humanitarian channels. In furtherance of this 'no advantage' policy, extraterritorial processing on Nauru and Papua New Guinea has been re-introduced and 'excision' provisions are to be extended to mainland Australia placing the continent outside of its 'migration zone' and, therefore, asylum seekers beyond the regular laws and processes for protection seekers. This article analyses the seismic shifts in asylum seeker policy that have occurred in Australia over the recent past and the politics underpinning them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the United Nations' 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and considers its significance from the perspective of Australians. The obligation of states to protect indigenous peoples and their rights to self-determination and the maintenance of cultural traditions is discussed. Controversies over indigenous people's control of lands and natural resources are considered, noting that provisions of the Declaration provides them the right to pursue sovereignty and secede from Australian states. The author also comments on the incompatibility of Aboriginal views on property rights to the view of private ownership accepted by Western cultures.

The judgment of the High Court of Australia in R v. Tang is a significant contribution to jurisprudence on the definition of slavery under international law. This case considered whether the intention of the perpetrator was a necessary element for the prosecution of that offence under Australian law. The High Court also preserved the conceptual integrity of slavery, evaluated the decisions in Kunarac and Siliadin, identified the powers attaching to the right of ownership as that expression appears in the 1926 and 1956 Slavery Conventions and employed a human rights orientation to contemporary manifestations of slavery. Although considerable practical challenges remain for enforcing the prohibition against slavery in Australia, R v. Tang marks a significant precedent likely to influence future international jurisprudence on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Australia's compliance, or lack thereof, with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The ICESCR classifies many utopian conditions for human life as rights. These include the right of everyone to a good job, good health care, and social security. It is noted that no other human rights treaty is so consistently and repeatedly violated by its signatories. The question of why the Australian government signed the ICESCR in 1975 is raised. Such treaties have no direct impact on Australian law. It is argued that countries ought not to sign treaties which they have no intention of implementing.

Discusses the impact of mandatory sentencing laws on the human rights of indigenous people in Australia. Offenses and sentences under mandatory sentencing; Mandatory sentencing legislation in Western Australia investigated by Mary Robinson, High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations; Details of the Juvenile Justice Amendment Act.

The article examines the child participation principle in child protection law in New South Wales. It is in the light of this traditional focus on children's best interests in child protection proceedings, that new child protection laws in New South Wales, Australia, may seem quite radical. In this jurisdiction, the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 has enacted a participation principle as one of its foundational principles. The participation principle is given specific effect in a number of different places in the Act. These may be categorized as follows: the right to initiate intervention; the right to information; the right to participate when decisions are made and the right to have one's wishes taken into account. The Act spells out that either a parent or a child or young person may seek assistance from the Department of Community Services, and if this occurs, the Department is under a legal obligation to respond. The Act requires organizations to have their own complaints procedures in place, and the Community Services Commission need only play a role if those complaints processes have failed to resolve the matter in a satisfactory way. The Aboriginal Child Placement Principle, which has been established for many years, seeks to ensure that an aboriginal child will be placed with an aboriginal family unless there is no such carer available.