Notes from the Field
Fighting for Human Rights in Darwin, Australia
January 2002


In the summer of 2000, Beth Tsai, an AIUSA Patrick Stewart Human Rights Scholarship recipient, went to Darwin, Australia to work with the North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service (NAALAS). She describes the role she played in NAALAS's decision to submit a communication to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in its fight against mandatory sentencing laws.

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Say the phrase "human rights," and immediately a large number of "rights" come to mind: political rights, civil rights, social rights, LGBT rights, women's rights. However, in this mass of areas and sub-areas covered by the human rights umbrella, there is one "right" that is often overlooked: indigenous rights.

	Beth (center, with croc!) and the NAALAS solicitors and staff.

In the summer of 2000, I received a Patrick Stewart Human Rights Scholarship to fund my indigenous rights work with the North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service (NAALAS) in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. The Aboriginal Australians, like many of the world's more than 500 indigenous groups, have been a historically disenfranchised people. Since the first arrival of the British on Aboriginal shores, Australia's indigenous population has endured the forcible seizure of their traditional lands, a government-sponsored genocide, and the perpetual mistrust and misconceptions of the mainstream Australian population.

There are currently numerous issues on the table for Aboriginal rights advocates: access to government services, Stolen Generation litigation, the right to interpreters, and the need for culturally appropriate housing. While at NAALAS, I had the chance to dabble in all of these areas. However, at the time, the issue du jour was mandatory sentencing.

Aboriginal children in front of their health center float for the NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islander Day of Celebration) parade, Yarrabah Community, Queensland.

Mandatory sentencing, or "three-strikes laws," as they are known in the US, became law in the Northern Territory in 1997. Under the laws, offenders who committed certain select property offences would be sent to jail for a prescribed period of time, irrespective of their previous record or mitigating circumstances. In one particularly famous mandatory sentencing case, a hungry Aboriginal man received one year in jail for stealing a box of biscuits on Christmas Day.

Mandatory jail law in the Northern Territory specifically targeted Aboriginal people by applying only to offences committed primarily by Aborigines. This fact was even admitted by government leaders at the time of the laws' inception. However, despite this acknowledgement of bias, the laws remained in place.

	Aboriginal people from all over came to the Open Day at Barrunga Community, N.T. The "cage truck" in the background is a typical means of transport in these remote communities.

NAALAS had been fighting mandatory sentencing since its inception with a combination of legal challenges, relentless publicity and public education. Along the way, they had managed to turn a local, Northern Territory issue into a nation-wide controversy that received an official Senate Inquiry (at which Amnesty itself offered evidence). However, now, the policy solicitors at NAALAS had decided to bring mandatory sentencing into the international arena by submitting a communication to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Under the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (to which Australia in a state party), an individual can make a direct complaint to the United Nations if she believes her human rights have been violated by the state. NAALAS seized upon this opportunity and, on behalf of an Aboriginal client, proceeded to register a complaint to the UN that mandatory sentencing was a violation of human rights.

Another NAIDOC float in the Yarrabah Community Parade, Queensland.

I was fortunate enough to participate in the preparation of this Communication to the UN. While the body of the Communication was written by NAALAS solicitors, I was asked to assist on the various appendices that would accompany the document. These appendices were designed not only to provide the Human Rights Committee with an insight into the disadvantages suffered by Aboriginal Australians, but also to demonstrate public outrage at the injustice of mandatory sentencing. As a result, I spent approximately a month doing research, digging through case files and pouring over news transcripts -- anything that would make our case stronger. It was tedious work. However, when the Communication was sent to the UN on July 4th, I'm proud to say my name was on the acknowledgements.

NAALAS's Communication was an unprecedented move. The international publicity gained by the actions further embarrassed the already-burned Australian government and brought Australia's poor indigenous rights record into the spotlight at a time when the country was preparing for the 2000 Olympics. Most importantly, however, the Communication increased awareness locally about the unjust nature of mandatory jail law and, following a change in power resulting from a recent election, mandatory sentencing was abolished in the Northern Territory -- four years after its inception.

Whenever I tell people about my work in Australia, many are surprised to learn that a human rights activist was advocating for Aboriginal rights. For them, and for many human rights activists as well, indigenous rights are overlooked in the human rights discourse, just as indigenous peoples are perpetually overlooked by governments. However, with its Communication to the UN Human Rights Committee, NAALAS demonstrated that indigenous rights and human rights are inexorably linked. Indigenous rights are human rights.