Indigenous Australians’ Access to Birth Registration Systems: A Breach of International Human Rights Law?

Abstract

There are significant numbers of Indigenous Australians who are unable to prove their identity — either because their birth was never registered, or because they cannot satisfy the requirements of the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for obtaining a birth certificate. The effect is to make such people legally invisible, preventing them from enjoying all the rights of citizenship that the majority take for granted. This article explores whether international human rights law, in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, can help redress this problem.

Keywords: Human Rights, Indigenous, International Law, Birth certificate, birth registration

JEL Classification: K19, K39