Edmund Rice Justice Bulletin

Over the last 25 years, Australia has achieved some significant milestones in its journey of reconciliation with its indigenous peoples. These include the establishment of native title, the Apology, the Closing the Gap framework and progress on constitutional recognition of First Australians.

While much goodwill and support for reconciliation is growing across the Australian community, racism, denial of rights, and a lack of willingness to come to terms with its history continue to overshadow the nation’s progress towards reconciliation.

The recent celebration of National Reconciliation Week highlighted a number of issues and related campaigns:
The campaign to RECOGNISE Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia’s Constitution and ensure there's no place for racial discrimination in it.

The Close the Gap campaign which has the goal is to close the health and life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation.

National Sorry Day an annual day of atonement for the perhaps well-intentioned but misguided policy that forcibly removed an estimated 50,000 children from their Aboriginal families between 1910 and the 1970s.

Edmund Rice International is an ECOSOC accredited NGO working within the UN. This means that it can be active within the UN in a variety of ways. From its very inception, NGOs have been recognised as having a major role to play within the UN, particularly with regards to human rights. Increasing restrictions on the work of NGOs and harassment of human rights defenders by States are particularly concerning.

Of particular concern is the restriction of civil society at the UN through an increasingly politicised and non-transparent accreditation process for NGOs. The accrediting committee is currently made up of 19 countries, several of whom, Russia, China and Cuba for example, often act to suppress the voice of civil society.

The system works in such a way that any committee member can defer the decision of accreditation until the next session by a single question. Members will also make deals to ask questions on each other’s behalf to further hinder the process, or will work together to push a vote of rejection or “non-action” to prevent the accreditation of an NGO. One example of this is the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center who have been deferred on eight separate occasions through 38 questions put forward on behalf of Iran.

There are civil-society allies on the committee such as the US, however they can only do so much and only have so much political capital to expend on this issue.

You can read more about the struggles of the NGO accreditation process here:

The above example is symptomatic of a wider problem. Civil society around the world is increasingly being silenced through violence and suppression of rights. For example in Russia, Egypt  and India, NGOs are required to register which gives the authorities the power to block overseas funding, freeze assets and even shut down organisations who do not register. In Sudan, police forces use sexual violence to silence female human rights defenders.

In the past three years over 50 countries have introduced or enacted measures to restrict civil society.

According to the World Press Freedom Index only one third of the world’s countries have a fully free press.

In his most recent report the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders drew attention to reports of reprisals against those who have spoken to the United Nations, made statements, sent documents or messages, or cooperated with it. He noted that reprisals or the threat of reprisals can take very sophisticated forms and States themselves have become aware of the power of reprisals to muzzle human rights defenders or prevent them from speaking out.

Such attacks may take a variety of forms: personal threats or threats against members of defenders’ families, smear campaigns, death threats, physical attacks, kidnapping, judicial harassment, murder and other forms of police harassment or intimidation.
 
ERI is mindful of any potential risk associated with its engagement wight he UN Human Rights Council. According to its staff security policy “local communities, through the local Advocacy Co-ordinator will be consulted in the drafting of any statements made by ERI at the UN (UPR submissions, Treaty Body submissions, Urgent Appeals to Special Rapporteurs etc). The use of any language that has the potential to pose a threat to the safety and well-being of members of the local community will be avoided in all ERI written and oral statements.”

Climate change is fast becoming one of the most significant risks for World Heritage sites across the globe.

Designated for their global significance and universal value to humankind, many World Heritage sites are major tourist destinations. Some are among the most iconic places on Earth. Now rising seas, higher temperatures, intensifying weather events, and other climate impacts threaten many of these locations and the local economies that depend on them.

This new report lists 31 natural and cultural World Heritage sites in 29 countries that are already being impacted  by climate change and are vulnerable to increasing temperatures, melting glaciers, rising seas, intensifying weather events, worsening droughts, and longer wildfire seasons.

Authored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the report highlights the urgent need to:
- Identify the World Heritage sites that are most vulnerable to climate change and implement policies and provide resources to increase resilience at those sites.
- Ensure that the threat of climate impacts is taken into account in the nomination and listing process for new World Heritage sites.
- Engage the tourism sector in efforts to manage and protect vulnerable sites in the face of climate change and educate visitors about climate threats.
- Increase global efforts to meet the Paris Agreement climate change pledges in order to preserve World Heritage sites for future generations

At the request of the Government of Australia, references to Australian sites were removed from the Report (however recent information about the state of conservation of the Great Barrier Reef is available on UNESCO’s website.

The 2016 Australian Fashion Report has recently been published which rates 87 different clothing companies based on policies, knowledge of and relationships with suppliers and respect for worker’s rights. The report suggests that while some progress is being made, much remains to be done to address the working rights of those who make our clothes.

One of the major problems is that very often companies know little about the source of materials for their clothes. The study split the production process into three stages:
•    Producing the raw materials e.g. cotton farmers (5%)
•    Producing the inputs e.g. weaving cotton (16%)
•    Final stage of cut, make and trim (69%)
(the numbers show the percentage of companies who can trace their supply lines through each stage)

As a result workers are left vulnerable to forced labour and exploitation and also means that companies can be unwittingly paying for child labour (there are today 168 million child labourers and 14.2 million people in forced labour). It also means that tragedies like the Rana Plaza factory collapse when 1,136 workers were killed in Bangladesh are allowed to happen.

The report also includes several case studies, which demonstrate how little it would take to improve the conditions of garment workers with a very small increase in retail price. In every section there are examples of good practice and inventive ways to improve conditions. These include Boden who gave their workers the opportunity to submit suggestions anonymously using mobile phones and the Cotton On Group which is acting to produce ethical cotton in Kenya.

In many cases the fashion industry has the potential to make a real contribution to helping local communities develop. There are several positive business practices described in the report, for example Pacific Brands in one year achieved a 7% decrease in working hours with a 20% increase in monthly income followed in the next year by a further 15% reduction and a 15% increase in wage levels. However many companies could do more. Two thirds of the companies studied have taken no action on paying a living wage. Failure to implement changes leads to excessive overtime, a cycle of poverty and ultimately a suppression of human rights.

The full report can be found here.