21 Years Strong: The Australian Human Rights Centre

21 Years Strong: The Australian Human Rights Centre

Garth Nettheim

Normally, the Human Rights Centre (AHRC) was established on 25 August 1986. But it had earlier antecedents. Indeed, when the UNSW Law School first began its teaching program in 1971, it was already engaged in human rights in a number of ways.

In 1970, the Foundation Professor and Dean, J H (Hal) Wootten, QC, had responded to approaches from Aboriginal people and others by forming a committee to seek appropriate responses to problems such as police harassment. This initiative evolved into Australia’s first Aboriginal Legal Service.

In the same period, Hal Wootten persuaded the University to adopt a policy of admitting qualified Indigenous Australians into courses, without reference to quotas. In its first intake, the Law School numbered two Aboriginal students and by1981, concern with Indigenous issues had found additional expression in the establishment of the Aboriginal Law Centre, subsequently renamed the Indigenous Law Centre.

One of the first compulsory subjects taught in the Law School in 1971 was a three-semester subject, Public Law, designed by Garth Nettheim and Tony Blackshield. It included constitutional history, constitutional law, administrative law, and a ‘civil liberties component’, which varied from year to year.

Thus, from the birth of the Law School, there were strong strands of interest in human rights and social justice.

Of course, the timing was right: in 1966 the UN General Assembly had adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These covenants commenced operation in the mid-1970s.

In the mid-1980s, a document entitled “Proposal for the establishment of a Human Rights Centre” was drafted which included the following section:

The Case for Establishment of a Centre at the University

of New South Wales:

The Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales is

a logical base for the Centre for several reasons:

1. The Chairman of the Australian Government’s Human Rights Commission, Dame Roma Mitchell, at the Law Graduation ceremony on 8 May, 1984 noted that the Faculty offered the widest range of human rights subjects of any Law School in Australia, according to the survey, Compendium of Human Rights Courses in Australian Tertiary Institutions (August 1983).

2. In conjunction with this teaching program the Law Library has, over several years, built up strong holdings

on human rights.

3. The Faculty has, for some years, organised occasional seminars and conferences on human rights topics.

The document went on to mention the various human rights­related events that had taken place at the University and roles played in human rights work by various members of the Law Faculty.

In 1986, on the initiative of several staff members, including Pat Hyndman, Garth Nettheim, Richard Chisholm, Hank di Suvero and George Zdenkowski, the Human Rights Centre was established. It was modelled on the Human Rights Research and Education Centre in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. In 1986 that Centre had five full-time staff. Sadly, and despite the various funding applications made over the years, the AHRC has never been able to emulate the Ottawa model in terms of resources. Indeed, until very recently, its leadership has been provided by academics on a voluntary basis.

Leadership of the fledgling Centre was provided by Patricia Hyndman as Director and Garth Nettheim as Chairperson. The Centre’s aims were to:

Undertake, encourage and facilitate research (including postgraduate research) in the field of human rights;

Co-ordinate and develop teaching in the field of

human rights including the establishment of cross
disciplinary teaching linkages;

Conduct specialised human rights courses of a continuing education nature for various professional groups such as lawyers, judges, police, doctors, school teachers, journalists, human rights workers;

Promote and stimulate informed thinking about human rights and their implication for law and society through excellence in analysis and research;

Organise occasional conferences for both specialists and non-specialist groups and providing assistance in similar activity by others, achieving the dissemination of i nformation about human rights to the broader community;

Collaborate in different activities with a variety of bodies and individuals working in the human rights area at the national, regional and international levels.

Deliberately, the Centre did not confine its membership to Law School academics, and the Management Committee included staff and students from political science, philosophy, social work and economics, starting in 1986 with Tony Palfreeman and Damien Grace.

Even before the first meeting of the Management Committee, a wider meeting of supporters was held on 10 November 1986. Bodies represented included several UNSW Departments, LAWASIA, Overseas Student’s Service, Philippine Action Support Group, Amnesty International Australia, Australian Council of Churches, Australian Law Reform Commission, Australian Red Cross Society, Department of Foreign Affairs, UNHCR, and a number of law students and staff.
Human Rig

“Although the Australian Human Rights Centre is formally celebrating its 21st Anniversary, its antecedents go back to 1970. ...(S)upport from the broader community and the university has allowed it to grow over the years.”

When the first meeting of the Management Committee was held on 16 December 1986, its funding comprised a $6500 General Development Grant from the University. But the AHRC was already proceeding to host, in May 1987, a UNESCO regional seminar on ‘Human Rights Teaching, Documentation and Dissemination of Information’. It also designed a Refugee Database project in consultation with UNHCR. Early minutes of meetings show considerable vitality in identifying possible research topics, seminars and conferences, and possibilities of widening the reach of the Centre generally. An impressive Advisory Council was established.

The early activities of the Centre reflected the momentum of those meetings. On 13 August 1987 the Centre’s inaugural Human Rights Lecture was presented by Professor Philip Alston on ‘The Concept of Economic and Social Rights and its Relevance to Australia’ (a videotaped copy is held in the Law School). In the next years the Centre held a number of events that reflected a diverse and multidisciplinary approach to human rights issues. With the NSW Privacy Committee, it planned a one-day seminar on “Data Protection and Privacy after the Australia Card”, largely developed by Graham Greenleaf. In partnership with the Communications Law Centre, the Centre held a seminar on freedom of the press in the Asia-Pacific region. In September 1998, in conjunction with the London-based Article 19, the Centre held the special Article 19 Lecture presented by Geoffrey Robertson QC on Freedom of Expression. In conjunction with UNHCR Geneva, the Centre held a seminar on ‘Comparative Refugee Law’.

Marion Dixon’s brief history of the Law School, Thirty Up: The story of the UNSW Law School 1971-2001, summarises the Centre’s early years thus:

During the first few years of its existence all the work of the Centre was done by volunteers on the academic staff of the University. The Centre organised seminars, workshops and public lectures and occasional publications. In 1990 it established the Human Rights Centre Essay Prize for the best essay on a human rights topic by a student at UNSW. In 1991 it co-sponsored the Tim Wilson memorial Lecture on Human Rights, given by Justice Michael Kirby in memory of a 1977 graduate of the Law School who had died of AIDS. The title of the lecture was “AIDS and Human Rights.

The Centre has developed two regular serials. The Australian Journal of Human Rights was initiated by Centre Director Melinda Jones, its inaugural issue dated December 1994. It was the first scholarly journal in human rights law in Australia. The Human Rights Defender began in 1992 as a newsletter of the Diplomacy Training Program. (The DTP was the brainchild of Jose Ramos-Horta aimed at training non-governmental organisations in the region about human rights standards, processes and skills. It began in 1989 as an activity of the AHRC, but in 1990 it became a separate (but associated) Centre). The Defender developed into a bi-monthly newsletter reporting on human rights issues and developments in Australia, the Asia-Pacific and internationally.

There have been numerous other publications from the Centre. They include:

Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations and Human

Rights (1995);

Communicating with the Human Rights

Committee: A Guide to the Optional Protocol to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(1996);

Petitioning the CERD Committee: Individual

Complaints under the Racial Discrimination
Convention (1998);

Globalisation, Human Rights and Civil Society

(1998);

Children on the Agenda: The Rights of Australia’s

Children (2001).

Centre directors have included George Zdenkowski, Damien Grace, Sarah Pritchard, Melinda Jones and John Pace. In 2003 Faculty funding was made available to support John Squires as a part-time Director, and, in 2005, part-time administrative support was funded. This has been extended with the appointment of the current Director, Andrea Durbach.

Although the Australian Human Rights Centre is formally celebrating its 21st anniversary, its antecedents go back to 1970. Its range of activities and support from academics and the broader community, and from the Faculty of Law and the University, have allowed it to grow over the years since its establishment.

May it continue to evolve for a further 21 years and more.

Garth Nettheim is an Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Law, UNSW and former Chairperson of the Australian Human Rights Centre. He was Dean and Head of School in the Faculty of Law in 1975-1978 and 1987-1988.