During its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) appearance in January 2011, the Australian Government committed to increasing Australia’s engagement and consideration of our international human rights obligations domestically by, amongst other things, establishing a publicly accessible, online database of recommendations from the UN human rights system, including recommendations made by UN human rights treaty bodies to Australia as well as recommendations made to Australia in the Universal Periodic Review.
Australia is a party to seven international human rights treaties: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Under each of these treaties, Australia is obliged to submit periodic reports and appear before a treaty body to answer questions. The outcome of each treaty body appearance is a set of ‘concluding observations’ from the treaty body. The concluding observations set out views and recommendations directed towards Australia.
Under the recently-established UPR, Australia will be examined every four years on its compliance with international human rights obligations. The outcome of this process will be a set of recommendations directed towards Australia. Australia must indicate whether it intends to accept or reject these recommendations.
The database was created as a best effort attempt at providing accurate and authoritative information that is currently available to the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department.
Information is current as of 30 August 2011.
UN Human Rights Recommendations Database
The UN Human Rights Recommendations Database includes recommendations made by the United Nations human rights treaty bodies to Australia as well as recommendations made to Australia in the Universal Periodic Review.
The Database can be downloaded as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or PDF document.
The Database will continue to be developed and expanded in the coming months.
Further information can also be found on the Department’s website at:
Database functions
Several functions are available in the Excel version Database to facilitate easy searching for information. Most of these are available as standard functions in Excel.
- Find – at the top of the page, use a drop down menu or enter your search text (upper or lower case, full or part words) to highlight relevant fields.
- Filter – it is possible to filter information to meet your specific need or interest. Click on the drop down arrow on the field heading and choose the relevant value(s).
- Sort – information is sorted initially by treaty type and then by year. It is possible to sort information to meet your specific need or interest. Unprotect sheet first and then select Home / Sort & Filter on the ribbon.
- Wrapping Text – many fields contain more information than is initially visible. This makes it easier to scan large amounts of information and limit printing to only what is relevant to you. To see more information, select the required field(s) and then click on Home / Wrap Text. To see less information, click on Wrap Text again.
- Hyperlinks – links to source documents have been provided wherever possible. Source documents are not controlled by the Attorney-General’s Department.
- Print – use standard print functions. It is possible to print in greyscale by making relevant changes under Print / Properties.
- Protection – protection is applied to avoid unintended corruption of information. Protection can be removed by selecting Review / Unprotect on the ribbon (without a password).
Feedback
If you wish to provide feedback about this database, please email humanrights@ag.gov.au.
Technical advice about Microsoft Excel is limited to using the database.