Thalia Anthony on Indigenous Legal Rights

The United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has noted with concern the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) to enact the Northern Territory Emergency Response (Intervention) laws.

The Committee oversees the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which Australia ratified in 1975. Article 2 of the Convention states:
1. States Parties condemn racial discrimination and undertake to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms and promoting understanding among all races, and, to this end:
(a) Each State Party undertakes to engage in no act or practice of racial discrimination against persons, groups of persons or institutions and to en sure that all public authorities and public institutions, national and local, shall act in conformity with this obligation;
(b) Each State Party undertakes not to sponsor, defend or support racial discrimination by any persons or organizations;
(c) Each State Party shall take effective measures to review governmental, national and local policies, and to amend, rescind or nullify any laws and regulations which have the effect of creating or perpetuating racial discrimination wherever it exists;
(d) Each State Party shall prohibit and bring to an end, by all appropriate means, including legislation as required by circumstances, racial discrimination by any persons, group or organization;
(e) Each State Party undertakes to encourage, where appropriate, integrationist multiracial organizations and movements and other means of eliminating barriers between races, and to discourage anything which tends to strengthen racial division.

The Committee referred especially to Article 2(2) that special measures “shall in no case entail … unequal or separate rights for different racial groups." This signals to the government that its efforts to convey the Intervention as a special measure are actually a breach of international law.

The Committee has asked the Australian Government to report in four months time on the progress it has made to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act and build a new relationship with Aboriginal Australia.

Barrister George Newhouse submitted the complaint on behalf of Indigenous peoples in the Northern Territory. My colleagues at Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, the University of Technology Sydney, undertook the research for the brief. I was happy to help them in a small way.

We'll now await the government response. Hopefully this report will expedite the reinstatement of the Racial Discrimination Act.