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    Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice
    Unavailable
    Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice
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    Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice
    Ebook355 pages5 hours

    Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice

    By Julian Burnside

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen a sharp decline in respect for human rights and the international rule of law. The legal conventions of the new realpolitik seem to owe more to Guantanamo than Geneva. Australia has tarnished its reputation in the field of human rights, through its support for illegal warfare, its failure to honor international conventions, its refusal to defend its citizens against secret rendition and illegal detention, and its introduction of secretive anti-sedition legislation and draconian anti-terror laws. In Watching Brief, noted lawyer and human rights advocate Julian Burnside articulates a sensitive and intelligent defence of the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees, and the importance of protecting human rights and maintaining the rule of law. He also explains the foundations of many of the key tenets of civil society, and takes us on a fascinating tour of some of the world's most famous trials, where the outcome has often turned on prejudice, complacency, chance, or (more promisingly) the tenacity of supporters and the skill of advocates. Julian Burnside also looks at the impact of significant recent cases — including those involving David Hicks, Jack Thomas, and Van Nguyen — on contemporary Australian society. Watching Brief is a powerful and timely meditation on justice, law, human rights, and ethics, and ultimately on what constitutes a decent human society. It is also an impassioned and eloquent appeal for vigilance in an age of terror — when "national security" is being used as an excuse to trample democratic principles, respect for the law, and human rights.
    LanguageEnglish
    Publisher Scribe Publications Pty Ltd.
    Release dateJul 1, 2009
    ISBN9781921753855
    Unavailable
    Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice
    Author

    Julian Burnside

    Julian Burnside, QC, is an Australian barrister who specialises in commercial litigation and is also deeply involved in human-rights work, in particular in relation to refugees. He is a former president of Liberty Victoria, and is also passionately involved in the arts: he is the chair of Melbourne arts venue fortyfivedownstairs, and regularly commissions music. He has published a children’s book, Matilda and the Dragon, as well as Wordwatching, a collection of essays on the uses and abuses of the English language, and Watching Brief: reflections on human rights, law, and justice.

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    Reviews for Watching Brief

    3.5/5

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    • 3/5
      Julian Burnside is an Australian lawyer who has specialised in human-rights cases since 2001, when the Norwegian ship 'Tampa' rescued hundreds of asylum-seekers near Christmas Island. This book is a collection of his essays and speeches on the subjects of asylum seekers in Australia, human rights, 'terror' laws and justice, written between 2001 and 2007. Burnside's exposure to the Tampa asylum seekers' cases made him an active proponent of justice and human rights, which certainly cost him professional and political friends at the time.Reading about those years reminded me of the politics of the time; how the asylum seekers were exploited by a cynical government which tapped a dark vein of xenophobia in the Australian psyche; the conflation of that issue with the 'War on Terror' and the enthusiastic discarding by Australian and US governments of legal and human rights for powerless minorities; the weasel words and petty legalisms such as 'enemy combatants' and 'illegal immigrants' which obscured and denied legal rights to prisoners held indefinitely without trial. These things had faded in my mind with the newer anxieties of the the teens, but this book reminded me.The book is divided into three main sections with a brief and fairly inconsequential preface. The first and strongest section discusses the legal status of asylum seekers in Australia, including children, who uniquely in the world can be detained indefinitely without trial. In theory this detention is to await processing of their claims but in practice this can take years, especially when the system is controlled by a hostile and unfeeling government as was the case from 2001-7. Years of indefinite and uncertain detention has an extremely negative effect on the mental state of detainees, especially children. Burnside argues (and it is hard to gainsay him) that such long-term detention of innocents is morally wrong.The second section of the book deals with the 'War on Terror' of 2001-2009(?), the blight on international justice that is Guantanamo Bay (still operational and with untried detainees in 2014 -- Burnside draws a parallel between its motto "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom" and "Arbeit Mach Frei" on the gates of Auschwitz, each utter lies) and the various 'anti-terror' laws which the Howard government was able to pass. These laws allow for Australian intelligence agencies to detain 'suspicious' citizens without trial and without knowledge of their supposed crime. Burnside argues for a bill of rights in Australia to protect citizens from such nefarious legal but unjust laws which allow secret trials without evidence -- a guaranteed recipe for miscarriages of justice. The third section is an interesting but curiously unfocused ramble through famous legal trials, some of which have a human rights focus and some of which do not. It's an odd end to an otherwise thought-provoking book.
    • 4/5
      Julian Burnside is an advocate for people in immigration detention centre and as such can write a very readable but horrifying account of the conditions under which people are imprisoned. The book seems to be divided into two portions. I would recommend that all Australians read it the first portion. They can only benefit and educate themselves. The second portion of the book is a sorry and sad recounting of historical social and legal injustice which brings to the subject matter no benefit. Thankfully, the first portion of the book has a very big impact. What is more, Burnside writes about topics which were reported extensively in the press and it is interesting to compare the accounts and realise who much is edited in the newspapers.