Watching Brief: reflections on human rights, law, and justice

by Julian Burnside

Overview

The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen a sharp decline in respect for human rights and the international rule of law. The legal conventions of the new realpolitik seem to owe more to Guantanamo than Geneva.

Australia has tarnished its reputation in the field of human rights, through its support for illegal warfare, its failure to honour international conventions, its refusal to defend its citizens against secret rendition and illegal detention, and its introduction of secretive anti-sedition legislation and draconian anti-terror laws.

In Watching Brief, noted lawyer and human rights advocate Julian Burnside articulates a sensitive and intelligent defence of the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees, and the importance of protecting human rights and maintaining the rule of law. He also explains the foundations of many of the key tenets of civil society, and takes us on a fascinating tour of some of the world’s most famous trials, where the outcome has often turned on prejudice, complacency, chance, or (more promisingly) the tenacity of supporters and the skill of advocates. Julian Burnside also looks at the impact of significant recent cases — including those involving David Hicks, Jack Thomas, and Van Nguyen — on contemporary Australian society.

Watching Brief is a powerful and timely meditation on justice, law, human rights, and ethics, and ultimately on what constitutes a decent human society. It is also an impassioned and eloquent appeal for vigilance in an age of terror — when ‘national security’ is being used as an excuse to trample democratic principles, respect for the law, and human rights.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781921372360
Publisher:	Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Publication date:	10/27/2008
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	15 - 18 Years

About the Author

Julian Burnside, QC, is an Australian barrister who specialises in commercial litigation and is also deeply involved in human rights work, in particular in relation to refugees. He is a former president of Liberty Victoria, and is also passionately involved in the arts: he is the chair of Melbourne arts venue fortyfivedownstairs, and is chair of the Mietta Foundation. He has published a children’s book, Matilda and the Dragon , as well as Wordwatching , a collection of essays on the uses and abuses of the English language, and Watching Brief: reflections on human rights, law, and justice .

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Part I Foundations

1 School Days 3

2 The Practice of Law: justice, or just a job? 9

Part II Asylum-seekers in Australia

Introduction 23

3 Authoritarianism in the Name of Freedom 30

4 Towards a Just Society: beyond the spin 44

5 Australia's Crimes Against Humanity: not 'interesting' 79

6 The Pacific Solution 83

7 Tony Abbott: master of the soft sell 91

8 Honesty Matters: the ethics of daily life 95

9 Australia's Refugee Policy 105

Part III Human Rights in an Age of Terror

Introduction 127

10 Terror, Old and New: from the Gunpowder Plot to Guantanamo 131

11 Human Rights and International Law 153

12 Protecting Rights in a Climate of Fear 159

13 David Hicks: hearsay and coercion 165

14 The Argument for a Bill of Rights 173

15 Habeas Corpus 178

16 The Dreyfus Affair 184

17 Anti-Terror Laws: controlling Jack Thomas 192

18 Howard's 'Fair Go' Australia 201

Part IV Justice and Injustice

Introduction 211

19 Access to Justice 215

20 Van Nguyen: Australia and the death penalty 225

21 The Roger Casement Case 232

22 The Leopold and Loeb Case 239

23 The Oscar Slater Case 244

24 The Adolf Beck Case 250

25 The Stefan Kiszko Case 256

26 The Burning Car Case 262

27 The Scottsboro Boys Case 267

28 The Dred Scott Case 273

29 The Crippen Case 280

30 The Alma Rattenbury Case 286

31 The 'Black Book' Case 292

Appendixes

I Article 5 of the Constitution of Nauru: protection of personal liberty 299

II Sections 198B and 494B of Australia's Migration Act 300

III The Third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War [1949] 301

Notes 305

Acknowledgments 310

Editorial Reviews

"Watching Brief is cool and rational, providing uncomfortable detail in succinct prose. Burnside wants Australians to confront what is done in their name. Detaining asylum-seekers is wrong and illegal, and decent people should demand change. . . . Like Zola in 1898, Burnside accuses his nation's most senior leaders of complicity in injustice, of duplicity in their public statements. He condemns attacks on human rights and consequences for those wrongly and secretly imprisoned. . . . Watching Brief is his argument for a new approach to human rights policy. Julian Burnside has produced a brief that deserves a wide audience and careful judgement." — Glyn Davis, the Age
 

“It's a fascinating read for anyone who burns with a passion for human decency and an interest in ethics.” —Sunday Telegraph

"Watching Brief astounds with the range of subject matter covered and the brilliant narrative which emerges from that range. Watching Brief incites the compulsion of the thriller in a text which covers autobiography and recent political and legal history against a background of the more distant human rights struggles on which the foundation stones of modern democratic practice and theory are based. And that’s not all." — Stephen Keim Queen's Counsel

"Watching Brief provides a fascinating patchwork of thoughts and responses that gives an insight into the atmosphere and political climate surrounding key human rights issues over the past decade." — Tilda Hum, Precedent

From the Publisher