Kumanjayi Langdon died alone in a Darwin police cell, after being locked up under the Northern Territory’s controversial “paperless arrest” laws. His crime was drinking in a public place, an offence that carries a $74 fine.
Read MoreLegislation to create safe access zones around abortion clinics is another welcome step towards ridding our society of all forms of violence against women.
Read MoreAustralia is locking up more people than ever before and many of Australia's prison practices breach the UN's new standards, writes the HRLC's Ruth Barson.
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If we want justice for women in the workplace we need to see work-life balance as an important issue for men as well as women - Catherine Branson QC's 2015 Law and Justice Address.
Read MoreDon't let the crocodile tears of our politicians persuade you otherwise - punishing the survivors of risky voyages will achieve nothing but more suffering, writes our Director of Communications, Tom Clarke.
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Successive governments have been vying to draft the harshest refugee policies. We can do better than this, writes Hugh de Kretser. Read More
Another Aboriginal person was locked up for minor offences and died in custody. On these bare facts alone, as a nation we should be outraged, writes Eddie Cubillo.
Read MoreThe HRLC's Tom Clarke looks at whether the back-peddling has already begun on Indonesia's announcement that it will let foreign journalists into West Papua.
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The HRLC’s Anna Brown contributed an essay on progress on the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the Oceania region to ILGA's 10th edition of its State-Sponsored Homophobia Report.
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The Australian government should come clean on its role in the US drone program before buying its own, writes the HRLC's Emily Howie.
Read MoreChan & Sukumaran have been denied the chance to learn from their mistakes. We owe it to them to learn from ours, writes the HRLC's Daniel Webb.
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While ongoing commitments and efforts to secure the rights of the world’s women and girls are commendable, on no measure can we say that our work is done, writes Natasha Stott Despoja, Australia’s Ambassador for Women and Girls.
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There’s no question that 2014 was a big year for LGBTI equality in Victoria, but there’s still unfinished business on our wish list for 2015 writes the HRLC’s Anna Brown.
Read MoreScott Morrison's Migration and Maritime Powers Bill is a truly appalling piece of legislation. Its repugnance is surpassed only by the tactics used to secure its passage, writes the HRLC's Daniel Webb.
Read MoreWe cannot close the gap when so many indigenous men, women and children are behind bars, writes the HRLC's Ruth Barson.
Read MoreHRLC Executive Director, Hugh de Kretser, delivered a speech at the Australian Communities Foundation’s end of year event. Here’s what he had to say.
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Australia recently argued before the Committee Against Torture that violence against women does not fall within the Committee’s mandate. Australia was unequivocally wrong to do so – both legally and ethically, writes the HRLC's Ruth Barson
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While the public outrage at Blessington and Elliot's crime was justified, the subsequent campaign of populist and retrospective law reform was not, writes the HRLC's Daniel Webb.
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Bronson Blessington and Matthew Elliott were 14 and 16 respectively when they participated in the 1988 rape and murder of Janine Balding, one of the most shocking and abhorrent crimes in NSW history.
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'Why build prisons when we can build communities?' asks Carol, grandmother of Julieka Dhu, in the HRLC's Ruth Barson's opinion piece about Aboriginal deaths in custody.
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Indonesia's incoming president presents a promising opportunity for Australia to recast both its military and human rights relationship with our northern neighbour, writes the HRLC's Tom Clarke.
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The high court case surrounding the detention of 157 Tamil asylum seekers this year shows how Australia’s refugee policies are failing us, writes the HRLC's Daniel Webb.
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Australia often promotes human rights at a diplomatic and economic level on the world stage, yet these calls will fail to ring true while we struggle to acknowledge or fully comprehend the meaning of rights at home, writes former Victorian AG Rob Hulls.
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In 1977, long time gay rights activist Jamie Gardiner wrote a brief seeking expungement of homosexual convictions. Last week, he sat in Victoria’s parliament and watched it happen. Here he reflects on his decades long journey from campaigning for the decriminalization of homosexuality in the 1970’s to the challenges that reamin today.
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Across the globe, civil society advocacy is increasingly being threatened by laws and practices that criminalise protest, prevent association, threaten funding and curtail independence, writes the HRLC's Hugh de Kretser.
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The HRLC’s Anna Brown reports on her recent advocacy work in Geneva and the passage of the crucially important resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity by the UN Human Rights Council.
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Scott Morrison's 'Cambodia deal' takes Australia further from the genuine regional solution that’s needed, writes the HRLC's Daniel Webb.
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HRLC's Ruth Barson discusses the loss of the preexisting global consensus that torture is unequivocally immoral and illegal Interview with Juan Mendez, the UN's Special Rapporteur on Torture.
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Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s comment that Australia was an ‘unsettled or scarcely settled great south land’ prior to colonisation, could hardly have come at a more inopportune time: on the eve of NAIDOC week.
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Writing in the Herald Sun, the HRLC's Daniel Webb outlines the case against sending asylum seekers to places where they risk torture or death.
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It's a violation of Sri Lanka's migration law to leave the country unofficially. Most of the asylum seekers Australia is returning to Sri Lanka's navy will be charged – or worse, writes the HRLC's Emily Howie.
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The HRLC's Daniel Webb provides an overview of Scott Morrison's proposed changes that will significantly increase the risk of people being returned to countries where they face torture or death.
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A conversation about Australia's involvement in the US’s program of deadly drone strikes is long overdue, writes the HRLC's Emily Howie.
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We can reduce prison populations, prison spending and the crime rate at the same time, writes the HRLC's Hugh de Kretser.
Read MoreFor survivors of child sexual abuse seeking justice, the process of civil litigation can be re-traumatising, and present complex barriers, explains Knowmore's Executive Officer, Jenny Hardy.
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Appeals to freedom are essentially calls to prioritise a right to discriminate over fair and equal access to employment, education and services, writes Rachel Ball.
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The Human Rights Law Centre's Emily Howie writes that Australia has been silent on a United Nations push for an inquiry into war crimes in Sri Lanka because the Coalition is more concerned about "stopping the boats" .
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The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Race Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Tim Soutphommasane, asks whether scrapping section 18C of the RDA will unleash a wave of humiliation of the vulnerable.
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Proposed voter ID laws will cause more problems than they will solve writes University of Queensland’s Graeme Orr and the HRLC’s Emily Howie.
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The reckless disclosure of the personal details of 10,000 asylum seekers adds another layer to the risk they may face – they could be further persecuted on return to their countries, writes the HRLC's Daniel Webb.
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