Australia Would Please Like to Join the UN Human Rights Council, Please

Australia, a country with a dubious human rights record, would very much like to join the UN's Human Rights Council. While this wasn't exactly how Malcolm Turnbull phrased his address to UN officials today, it was the general gist if you read between the lines.

The Prime Minister is currently in New York at the United Nations General Assembly. In a speech delivered Thursday morning, he told the nations assembled that Australia was ready to join the Council for its 2018-2020 term. Turnbull cited Australia's focus on gender equality, freedom of expression, and good governance.

Puzzlingly, the PM also cited Australia's record on promoting the rights of Indigenous people, multiculturalism, and helping refugees as some of our key human rights strengths. He characterised Australia as an immigrant nation, and spoke of refugee AFL player Aliir Aliir as an example of successful multiculturalism policy.

"Aliir is one of the first Sudanese immigrants to play AFL and has become a role model in our multicultural nation, especially for young people in Sydney," Turnbull told the UN.

If you've been reading the news this year—or, frankly, any year in recent memory—Turnbull's speech might raise some questions. The UN itself has openly thrown shade on Australia's human rights record in recent times, with UN Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein saying our asylum seeker policy has led to a "chain of human rights violations" and also criticising the revelations of the Don Dale footage.

The UN actually ruled that Australia's offshore detention policy is completely illegal, although the Department of Immigration didn't pay much attention to this. In fact, as a country we have a remarkably poor record of following UN treaties—we've breached international human rights laws 41 times since 1994.

In spite of all this, Australia has been gunning for a spot on the Human Rights Council for a while. It was the previous Labor government who originally announced our bid for the next term.

The Council was established in 2006, replacing the UN Commission on Human Rights, which drafted the well-known UN Declaration on Human Rights. Why was a new Council established? Well, they'd basically let too many countries with terrible human rights records join. Sudan, Zimbabwe etc.

Now the Council has 47 member nations, which come under periodic review for their human rights records. Members are elected for three-year terms, and can't serve more than two consecutive terms. You can be suspended from the Human Rights Council, too—as Libya was in 2011 following a government crackdown on Arab Spring dissidents.

Australia's official bid for election to the Human Rights Council is available to read here. We are competing with France and Spain for two available seats. Fingers crossed, hey?

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