Nestle and the human right to water [part 1]
There is a video doing the rounds at the moment of Nestle Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe declaring that water isn’t a human right and arguing that the best way to ensure fair distribution is through privatisation and assigning a market value [...]
‘Malaysia Solution’ signed: Roundtable
Chris Bowen and Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein signed the long foreshadowed agreement for a swap of asylum seekers at 2.30pm. There are some details, though not a lot, at the ABC.
The next decade: The (not so) strange death of Western liberal universalism
In thinking about Rob’s post on the decade ahead, it occurred to me that one of the current forces at work in the world most denied and, indeed, repressed is the death of Western liberal universalism. In his fantastic little [...]
CPD post: Lynch on human rights in the Asia Pacific
During the election campaign, LP will be cross-posting selected items from the Centre for Policy Development’s discussion of policy issues, Thinking Points. Readers may also be interested in the CPD’s collection of policy ideas and priorities for the next term, [...]
CPD post: Lynch on Australia’s place in the world
During the election campaign, LP will be cross-posting selected items from the Centre for Policy Development’s discussion of policy issues, Thinking Points. Readers may also be interested in the CPD’s upcoming collection of policy ideas and priorities for the next [...]
Australia, PNG, aid and torture
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak has just completed a fact-finding mission to Papua New Guinea, uncovering widespread and systematic torture by law-enforcement agencies, including beatings, maimings, hamstringing, and rape. Criminal suspects were routinely beaten on arrest, escapees [...]
Government squibs response to human rights consultation
The Australian Labor Party has long had a commitment to entrenching the protection of human rights, driven by a continuing tradition of legal liberalism associated with luminaries such as Gough Whitlam and Gareth Evans. Yet the ALP has also had [...]
Ne bis in idem
Crossposted from No Right Turn. The above, which translates as “not twice for the same”, is one of the fundamental principles of modern law. Once you’ve been tried for something, and that trial has reached a final verdict (either to [...]
They're Here! Asylum seeker beat ups
So, it wasn’t just me that noticed a prime piece of fear mongering occupying the front page of Brisbane’s Sunday Mail (now with new editor!): <img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/files/2010/03/29-03-2010-10-50-17-AM1.jpg" The image of the paper’s Sunday cover comes courtesy of Crikey:
Entrenched racism
Crossposted from No Right Turn. In the run-up to the 2007 election, then-Australian Prime Minister John Howard decided to repeat his successful racial wedge tactics with Aborigines as the victims, declaring a “state of emergency” in Northern Australia, taking over [...]
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