International Conference
Legislatures and the Protection of Human Rights
A major international conference
Melbourne , 20-22 July 2006
This major international conference was designed to encourage exploration of the role and effectiveness of legislatures in protecting human rights.
Until recently academic and public attention had focussed mainly on the contribution of courts to the protection of human rights through the enforcement of bills of rights.
This conference built on the growing awareness of the significant role of legislatures in protecting human rights.
In particular, it investigated how effective legislative scrutiny mechanisms have been in practice. Papers presented at the conference discussed:
- the impact of Bills of Rights on parliamentary procedures
- the contribution of legislative actors and processes (eg the executive, political parties, parliamentary committees, debate in the chamber) to effective scrutiny of legislation
- the conditions in which effective legislative scrutiny can take place
- pre-legislative mechanisms, including
- the value of rights- or Charter-compatibility statements and human rights impact statements
- developing a human rights culture in the public service
- the role of outside influences on effective legislative scrutiny
Read the conference papers and presentations. Read the conference programme.
Featured speakers included
- Professor David Feldman ( University of Cambridge, and former legal adviser to the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights)
- Professor Janet Hiebert (Queen’s University, Kingston Ontario)
- Professor George Williams (Director, Gilbert+Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW)
- Hafid Abbas (Director General of Human Rights Protection, Department of Justice and Human Rights, Indonesia)
- Professor Jeremy Gunn (Director, Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, American Civil Liberties Union, Washington DC and Senior Fellow, Emory University, Georgia)
- Professor Paul Rishworth (Faculty of Law, University of Auckland)
- Professor David Kinley (Faculty of Law, University of Sydney)
Archived materials: Legislatures and the Protection of Human Rights Conference Brochure (final) and Registration Form.
Enquiries should be directed to the Conference Convenors, at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies, Dr Carolyn Evans (c.evans@unimelb.edu.au) and Dr Simon Evans (s.evans@unimelb.edu.au). For registration information, email cccs@law.unimelb.edu.au.
The support of the Australian Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.