This book is a contemporary socio-legal study of Australia’s protection of economic and social rights. Despite Australia’s hortatory language of compliance with international rights standards, its translation of these standards into domestic law and policy has been found wanting. In considering Australia’s compliance across the policy areas of health, housing, labour and social security, it is argued that Australia’s failings can be understood in terms of its institutional framework. This framework provides incomplete legal protection for rights and leaves that protection almost exclusively in the realm of politics and policymaking, an arena still dominated by neoliberalism and a political culture averse to the protection and promotion of economic and social rights.
Russell Solomon’s book provides a timely and insightful reminder of the neglect, avoidance and regression that has tended to dominate Australia’s treatment of economic and social rights. He reveals the dangers associated with a neoliberal approach to policy making for the realisation of these rights in the absence of any schemes to ensure their constitutional or statutory protection. His focus on the rights to health, housing, work and social security allows him to demonstrate with clarity the differences between welfare or charity based approaches and a genuine human rights based approach. This book, with its clear and accessible style, will be an asset to anyone with a genuine interest in understanding how Australia can better protect economic and social rights. - Prof. John Tobin, Francine V McNiff Chair in International Human Rights Law, Melbourne Law School, Australia This timely book fills a gap by focusing on the implementation and protection of economic and social rights in Australia, particularly in the areas of health, housing, labour and social security. Despite extensive international obligations, these rights are under-protected in Australia, a fact which has been brutally exposed by the Covid-19 crisis. Their protection is confined largely to the political and policy arenas dominated by neoliberal thinking rather than by enforceable laws. - Prof. Sarah Joseph, Griffith University, Australia This book is a contemporary socio-legal study of Australia’s protection of economic and social rights. Despite Australia’s hortatory language of compliance with international rights standards, its translation of these standards into domestic law and policy has been found wanting. In considering Australia’s compliance across the policy areas of health, housing, labour and social security, it is argued that Australia’s failings can be understood in terms of its institutional framework. This framework provides incomplete legal protection for rights and leaves that protection almost exclusively in the realm of politics and policymaking, an arena still dominated by neoliberalism and a political culture averse to the protection and promotion of economic and social rights. Russell Solomon teaches law in the Global Urban and Social Studies School at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
Russell Solomon's book provides a timely and insightful reminder of the neglect, avoidance and regression that has tended to dominate Australia's treatment of economic and social rights. He reveals the dangers associated with a neoliberal approach to policy making for the realisation of these rights in the absence of any schemes to ensure their constitutional or statutory protection. His focus on the rights to health, housing, work and social security allows him to demonstrate with clarity the differences between welfare or charity based approaches and a genuine human rights based approach. This book, with its clear and accessible style, will be an asset to anyone with a genuine interest in understanding how Australia can better protect economic and social rights. - Prof. John Tobin, Francine V McNiff Chair in International Human Rights Law, Melbourne Law School, Australia This timely book fills a gap by focusing on the implementation and protection of economic and social rights in Australia, particularly in the areas of health, housing, labour and social security. Despite extensive international obligations, these rights are under-protected in Australia, a fact which has been brutally exposed by the Covid-19 crisis. Their protection is confined largely to the political and policy arenas dominated by neoliberal thinking rather than by enforceable laws. - Prof. Sarah Joseph, Griffith University, Australia This book is a contemporary socio-legal study of Australia's protection of economic and social rights. Despite Australia's hortatory language of compliance with international rights standards, its translation of these standards into domestic law and policy has been found wanting. In considering Australia's compliance across the policy areas of health, housing, labour and social security, it is argued that Australia's failings can be understood in terms of its institutional framework. This framework provides incomplete legal protection for rights and leaves that protection almost exclusively in the realm of politics and policymaking, an arena still dominated by neoliberalism and a political culture averse to the protection and promotion of economic and social rights. Russell Solomon teaches law in the Global Urban and Social Studies School at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
This book addresses the international legal obligation to protect economic, social, and cultural human rights in times of armed conflict and other situations of armed violence. These rights provide guarantees to individuals of their fundamental rights to work, to an adequate standard of living (food, water, housing), to education, and to health. Armed violence can take many forms, from civil unrest or protest and other forms of internal disturbances and tensions to higher levels of violence that may amount to armed conflict, whether of an international or of a non-international character. However, in all such cases the protection of ESC rights is sorely challenged. Situations of actual or potential violence present a number of challenges to the application and implementation of human rights law in general and socio-economic rights obligations more specifically. This book sets out the legal framework, defining what constitutes a minimum universal standard of human rights protection applicable in all circumstances. It assesses the concept and content of ESC rights' obligations, and evaluates how far they can be legally applicable in various scenarios of armed violence. By looking at the specific human rights treaty provisions, it discusses how far ESC rights obligations can be affected by practical and legal challenges to their implementation. The book addresses the key issues facing the protection of such rights in times of armed conflict: the legal conditions to limit ESC rights on security grounds, including the use of force; the extraterritorial applicability of international human rights treaties setting out ESC rights; the relationship between human rights law and international humanitarian law; and the obligations of non-state actors under human rights law and with particular relevance to the protection of ESC rights. The book assesses the nature of these potential challenges to the protection of ESC rights, and offers solutions to reinforce their continued application.
Now in its eighth edition, Bioethics: A Nursing Perspective provides practical guidance on the ethical issues you might come across in nursing practice, with real-world examples that help to bring this important subject to life. Author Dr Megan-Jane Johnstone AO, Australia's foremost nursing ethics scholar, provides a comprehensive framework for negotiating the ethical challenges, obligations and responsibilities you might face. The text is engaging and easy to follow, and has been fully updated to reflect current issues in health care such as nurse practitioner assisted dying, pandemic ethics, and the moral costs of misinformation and medical conspiracy theories. . This book is a suitable companion to the law and ethics components of both undergraduate and postgraduate nursing studies, and is relevant for all nurses who encounter ethical problems in their everyday practice. Written in an engaging style – suitable for undergraduate as well as postgraduate students and researchers Focuses on prominent and topical ethical issues facing individual nurses as well as the broader profession Covers a broad range of bioethical issues in health care and how these relate to various fundamental traditions in philosophical ethics Real-life case studies and hypothetical scenarios to encourage debate Covers hot topics in modern nursing practice, including: Professional standards How to make moral decisions Cross-cultural ethics, including the problem of racism Dehumanisation and vulnerable populations Patient rights Mental health care ethics End-of-life care Moral politics of abortion and euthanasia Moral lessons of COVID-19 Additional resources on Evolve eBook on VitalSource Questions fostering critical reflection to support learning Key points and new chapter groupings for easy navigation New chapter on pandemic ethics
The engagement of Indigenous Australians in economic activity is a matter of long-standing public concern and debate. Jon Altman has been intellectually engaged with Indigenous economic activity for almost 40 years, most prominently through his elaboration of the concept of the hybrid economy, and most recently through his sustained and trenchant critique of policy. He has inspired others also to engage with these important issues, both through his writing and through his position as the foundation Director of The Australian National University’s Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy research from 1990 to 2010. The year 2014 saw both Jon’s 60th birthday and his retirement from CAEPR. This collection of essays marks those events. Contributors include long?standing colleagues from the disciplines of economics, anthropology and political science, and younger scholars who have been inspired by Jon’s approach in developing their own research projects. All point to the complexity as well as the importance of engaging with Indigenous economic activity — conceptually, empirically and as a strategic concern for public policy.
Economic, social and cultural rights are finally coming of age. This book brings together all essential documents, materials, and case law relating to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) - one of the most important human rights instruments in international law - and its Optional Protocol. This book presents extracts from primary materials alongside critical commentary and analysis, placing the documents in their wider context and situating economic, social, and cultural rights within the broader human rights framework. There is increasing interest internationally, regionally, and in domestic legal systems in the protection of economic, social, and cultural rights. The Optional Protocol of 2008 allows for individual communications to be made to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights after its entry into force in 2013. At the regional level, socio-economic rights are well embedded in human rights systems in Europe, Africa and the Americas. At the national level, constitutions and courts have increasingly regarded socio-economic rights as justiciable, narrowing the traditional divide with civil and political rights. This book contextualises these developments in the context of the ICESCR. It provides detailed analysis of the ICESCR structured around its articles, drawing on national as well as international case law and materials, and containing all of the key primary materials in its extensive appendices. This book is indispensible for the judiciary, human rights practitioners, government legal advisers and agencies, national human rights institutions, international organisations, regional human rights bodies, NGOs and human rights activists, academics, and students alike.
The provision of social services in Australia has changed dramatically in recent decades, raising a range of important questions about financial and democratic accountability: 'who benefits', 'who suffers' and 'who decides'. This book explores these developments through rich case studies of a diverse set of social policy domains. The case studies demonstrate a range of effects of marketisation, including the impact on the experience of consumer engagement with social service systems, on the distribution of social advantage and disadvantage, and on the democratic steering of social policy.
Maintaining the importance of socio-economic issues in devising transitional justice mechanisms, this book examines the widespread practice of land grabbing in Afghanistan. On 3 September 2003, 100 armed police officers bulldozed around 30 homes in the Sherpur neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan, evicting over 250 people. Historically, the land was part of the property of the Ministry of Defense, of which a zone was allocated to the ministry’s employees who had built homes and had lived there for nearly 30 years. After the demolition, however, the land was distributed among 300 high-ranking government officials, including ministers, deputy ministers, governors and other powerful warlords. Land grabbing in Afghanistan has become a widespread practice across the country. Based on over 50 semi-structured interviews with key informants and group discussions with war victims and local experts in Kabul, the current book examines the relevance of transitional justice discourse and practice in response to this situation. Following a critical criminological concern with social harm, the book maintains that it is not enough to consider a country’s political history of violent conflict and the violation of civil and political rights alone. Rather, to decide on appropriate transitional justice mechanisms, it is crucial to consider a country’s socio-economic background, and above all the socio-economic harm inflicted on people during periods of violent conflict. This original and detailed account of the socio-economic challenges faced by transitional justice mechanisms will be of interest to those studying and working in this area in law, politics, development studies and criminology.
