Are Human Rights Enough (in Australia)?

Abstract

This essay reviews Samuel Moyn’s recent book Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World and explores its resonance with Australian political experience. It argues that the politics of bills of rights in Australia bear out one of Moyn’s central theses: that within global politics since the 1970s, a concern for human rights has partly displaced concerns about material inequality. Understanding this history should challenge progressive Australian lawyers to rethink the privileged standing that the bill-of-rights cause possesses within their aspirations for law reform, and encourage advocacy for projects that seek to counter material inequality.

Keywords: bills of rights, inequality, Australia, Samuel Moyn