Instructions:
Undertake independent research and write a research essay on one of the topics listed below or on one you devise yourself, provided you receive approval from your lecturer.The length of the essay should not exceed 3000 words. A leniency of 10% will be applied – the hard limit is, therefore, 3300 words. Any words over this limit will incur a marking penalty. Aim for 3000 words.
Human Rights Law Assessment – Australia.
Footnotes are an essential part of a satisfactory research essay and do not count towards the word limit. Headings and subheadings are encouraged and do not count towards the word limit. Whole sentences in graphics, pictures or charts will count towards the word limit.
To display satisfactory independent research, the essay should reference at least twelve different sources.
Essays should be typed using 12-point font, double-spaced and pages should be numbered. Students are required to use footnotes (not in-text citation or end notes). Students must follow the style set out in the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (4th ed) for citations, footnotes, headings and all other relevant formatting.
Students should make liberal use of headings and subheadings. Students are not required to include a bibliography or reference list at the end of the essay.
Essays should chiefly be written in the third person (not in, eg, the first person) and in prose (not, eg, in dot point form). The structure and organisation of your essay should be clear and easy to follow. Also pay particular attention to what you reference in your assignment – draw upon published scholarly resources and authoritative and up-to-date versions of primary materials (eg treaties, charters, international reports, cases and legislation).
Assignment Topics:
1.With the enactment of the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld), Queensland became the third Australian jurisdiction to adopt a legislative bill of rights. With reference to at least one other legislative bill of rights (Australian or another jurisdiction), critically analyse the scope of the Queensland Bill of Rights. You may consider the types of rights protected and/or the types of organisations or individuals that must comply with the Act.
2.Choose an international human rights organisation or body and discuss its powers and limitations. Should it have more power? Should it have less? Is the balance right?
Develop a single contention and refer to primary and secondary human rights resources in support of it.
3.Australia has received criticism for its treatment of refugees in recent years, especially from international commentators and UN human rights representatives. Critically analyse whether Australia’s treatment of refugees is consistent with Australia’s international human rights obligations. Your paper must include references to relevant human rights instruments.
Human Rights Law Assessment – Australia.
4.Choose a human right listed in an international human rights treaty Australia is party to and analyse whether Australia is fulfilling its relevant international human rights obligation and/or how Australia complies with the treaty. Evaluate whether Australia is doing enough.
5.Can torture ever be justified? Defend your contention with reference to human rights resources and/or with reference to moral theories of human rights.
6.Choose a human right listed in an international human rights instrument and justify (or give a justified objection to) its status as a human right. Refer to moral and/or instrumental theories of human rights.
7.Drawing on sources from international human rights law, develop an argument around whether terminating a pregnancy contravenes the human right to life and what circumstances and considerations might be relevant in determining the answer.
8.What is the significance of the Magna Carta (1215) and the Bill of Rights (1688) to human rights in contemporary Australia? Alternatively, identify two other historical documents and argue for their importance in the modern human rights regime in Australia or internationally.
9.What impact does Australia’s participation in the international human rights regime have on the Australian common law?
10.Choose a human right listed in an international treaty and discuss whether it can be derogated and, if so, in what circumstances. Should this be the case? Support your contention with relevant sources.
11.Choose a human right listed in an international treaty and discuss whether there are any legitimate grounds upon which a state might enter reservations against it when acceding to the treaty. Support your contention with relevant sources.
12.Choose a reservation entered by a state to a substantive provision of a human rights treaty. Critically analyse the state’s reasons for entering the reservation and whether it is justified. Draw on primary and secondary human rights sources in developing your response.
13.Analyse the international legal position on DPR (North) Korea’s attempt to denounce the ICCPR in 1997. Do you agree with the arguments you find? Support your contention with relevant sources.
14.Many human rights treaties and declarations focus on specific groups. Does this kind of specific focus undermine the universality and universal aspirations of human rights? Why or why not? Discuss with specific reference to one such treaty or declaration, some of the rights and obligations it contains and relevant discussions in human rights law literature.
15.Does the possibility of genetically modifying human beings pose a threat to any specific human rights or to the idea of human rights generally? Develop a contention and support it with reference to primary and secondary sources on human rights.
16.Does the collection and analysis of our data through online mechanisms by governments or tech companies pose a threat to any specific human rights? Develop a contention and support it with reference to primary and secondary sources on human rights.
17.Does Australia’s counter-terrorism legislation comply with Australia’s international human rights obligations?
18. COVID-19 and the measures introduced to deal with it by governments around the world including Australia, have led to many sudden and drastic changes in our freedoms and way of life. Discuss one of these changes and a human rights issue that it might raise. Refer to international human rights law and relevant treaty obligations in supporting your contention.
19.Choose one of the rights in the UDHR and justify its inclusion in the document. Support your contention by drawing upon a relevant theory of human rights.
Human Rights Law Assessment – Australia.
20.Choose one of the rights in the UDHR and argue that it should not be included.Support your contention by drawing upon a relevant theory of human rights.
21.Is the division of rights across the two main human rights treaties, the ICCPR and the ICESCR, principled? Should human rights be divided in such a way? Agree or disagree, supporting the contention you develop with relevant sources.