Individual and the Law

Individual and the Law.

A right is a claim made by individuals or groups that enables them to be treated in a certain way by other individuals or institutions. Rights are established, protected, restricted and potentially removed by acts of government, and this is thought to be a weakness of the Australian Constitution.

In Australia, human rights are protected in different ways. Unlike other liberal democracies such as the United States, Australia has no Bill of Rights to protect them in a single document.

Rights may be found in the Constitution of Australia which sets the formal guidelines for Australian Government and law. Rights are also protected by statute and common law. Many protections that we identify as Human Rights are protected by Australian judges applying common law principles, particularly in contract law and tort law.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 specifies the powers and functions of the Australian Human Rights Commission as the Commonwealth agency responsible for monitoring and promoting human rights protection.
It is also responsible for the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 as well as the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

International Law can be made through the formation of treaties between two or more nations, they are automatically binding to the citizens of a nation if the treaty is self-executing but in Australia treaties must be implemented through domestic legislation. Some important treaties that Australia is apart of are;
  Convention Against Torture (CAT), Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
  Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
  Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
  The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights...