Monitoring and Oversight of Human Rights in Closed Environments
137 Pages Posted: 27 Sep 2013 Last revised: 19 Nov 2013
Date Written: November 29, 2010
Abstract
This edited collection is an outcome of an Australian Research Council Linkage grant project, ‘Applying Human Rights in Closed Environments: A Strategic Framework for Managing Compliance’. As part of the ARC project a major Roundtable was convened in Melbourne in November 2010 to examine the role of monitoring and oversight bodies in protecting human and to identify current practices and future possibilities for mechanisms for accountability and oversight of human rights practices in closed environments. The papers address four broad themes:
•What makes an effective monitoring body? What bodies are currently performing human rights monitoring in closed environments in Australia? Where might the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) fit with these schemes?
•How do volunteer and advocacy groups produce change and what is their relationship with other monitoring or oversight agencies? •Is ‘human rights’ the most effective framework to be used by monitoring bodies? •How might new initiatives and oversight agencies come to be established and work effectively?
Keywords: Human Rights, Detention, Prisons, Immigration, Forensic Mental Health, Disability, Monitoring, Ombudsman
JEL Classification: H53, H56, H11, I18, I38, K10, K14, K12, K40
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation