More than 100 countries took the opportunity to comment and make recommendations on Australia’s human rights record. Almost half of them made one or more recommendations on asylum policies. There were also concerns about the conditions in detention and whether Australia was sending people back to countries where they might be tortured.
This article talks about the recent Universal Periodic Review that was done on Australia. The Universal Periodic Review is carried out on every country every 4 1/2 years by the United Nations Human Rights Council. It’s particularly special in that it is a “peer-review”, meaning that member countries hold each other up to their own standards for Human Rights.
This source looks at how Australia as a country has historically been unfair in its immigration policies to non-Whites and also at the way Australia treats potential immigrants who arrive on its shores. It is a country notorious for having mandatory detainment protocol for potential immigrants, but also known for sometimes completely turning boats away without any consideration. While Australia is the country ‘on trial’ so to speak at this particular Human Rights review, it is no different then a lot of other European countries and the United States in that a fair amount of its population holds very strong views on Immigration and keeping it under control. Australia is also a country with a very racist history that it is still working its way out of, relatively speaking. From the 1880s-1960s, Australia had an immigration policy informally known as White Australia Policy. Australia essentially restricted all non-European immigration, despite its proximity to Asia. The main reasons behind White Australia Policy were based on racial superiority. In a global context, Australia wasn’t the only country in this time period to believe in Scientific Racism, but they have been one of the slowest in getting rid of racist legislation and practices.
The author of the article, Fiona McGaughey (PhD Candidate in Human Rights Law at the University of Western Australia), puts some emphasis on the fact that relatively fewer numbers of countries vouch for stronger ‘Asylum Seeking’ protections for potential refugees compared to those who are strong proponents of Women’s Rights. In other words, while countries apart of the United Nations are becoming more progressive in terms of gender equality, they’re advancing far slower in terms of Immigration Reform. Historians can look at this document in the feature and see that xenophobia is probably one of the biggest issues facing the world on a global scale in 2015. More so, it shows how much more welcoming people have become to those within their own borders, but how unsure of outsiders the majority of the world still is.
Dylan Brown