Human Rights

Louise Chappell; John Chesterman; Lisa Hill

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511841545.002

This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

1 - Human Rights

Louise Chappell ,

John Chesterman and

Lisa Hill

Show author details

Louise Chappell: Affiliation:
University of Sydney
John Chesterman: Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Lisa Hill: Affiliation:
University of Adelaide

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Even if we are sure that liberal democracy is the best possible regime for the realisation of human flourishing – and no matter how developed a liberal democratic system is – it would be a mistake to assume that justice can be achieved in such a system purely via electoral processes. Given that public decision making in democracies relies upon the approval of a time-poor and imperfectly informed electorate as well as on the actions of representatives who are obliged to accommodate the electorate's preferences in order to retain legitimacy and power, it is unsurprising that democracy turns out to be a rather blunt instrument for the delivery of individual and minority rights. This flawed but unavoidable dynamic between the electorate and its representatives is, undoubtedly, one of the virtues of – and chief justifications for – democracy, but it is also one of its weaknesses.

Despite his enthusiastic advocacy of representative government, British philosopher John Stuart Mill was acutely alert to this reality. Mill endorsed representative democracy because of its tendency to put power into the hands of the majority or, in his words, to admit ‘all to a share in the sovereign power of the state’ (Mill 1991 [1863], 256). And yet, while democracy might ameliorate the problem of tyranny by a select elite, it still held the potential for oppression by the democratic majority over minorities (via ‘the acts of the public authorities’) (Mill 1991 [1863], 8–9; Wolff 1996, 115).

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Politics of Human Rights in Australia , pp. 6 - 26

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511841545.002 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baier, Annette, 1995. Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Bay, Christian, 1977. ‘Human Needs and Political Education.’ In Human Needs and Politics, ed. Fitzgerald, Ross. Sydney: Pergamon.Google Scholar

Bay, Christian, 1982. ‘Self-respect as a Human Right: Thoughts on the Dialectics of Wants and Needs in the Struggle for Human Community.’ Human Rights Quarterly, 4 February: 53–75.CrossRef Google Scholar

Bede, Harris, 2002. A New Constitution for Australia. Sydney: Cavendish Publishing.Google Scholar

Berlin, Isaiah, 2002. ‘Two Concepts of Liberty.’ In Four Essays on Liberty, ed. Berlin, I., London: Oxford University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Bryce, James, 1901. Studies of History and Jurisprudence. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Burdekin, Brian, 1994. ‘Foreword.’ In Towards an Australian Bill of Rights, ed. Alston, Philip. Canberra: National Capital Printing.Google Scholar

Charlesworth, Hilary, 1993. ‘The Australian Reluctance About Rights.’ Osgoode Hall Law Journal 31(1): 195–232.Google Scholar

Charlesworth, Hilary, 2002. Writing in Rights: Australia and the Protection of Human Rights. Sydney: UNSW Press.Google Scholar

Clark, Andrew Inglis, 1901. Studies in Australian Constitutional Law. Melbourne: Maxwell.Google Scholar

Cockburn, Alexander, 1898. Official Record of the Debates of the Australasian Federal Convention, Third Session, 20 January to 17 March 1898. Melbourne: R. S. Brain, Government Printer.Google Scholar

Collins, Hugh, 1985. ‘Political Ideology in Australia: The Distinctiveness of a Benthamite Society.’ In Australia, the Daedalus Symposium, ed. Graubard, S. R.. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.Google Scholar

Cranston, Maurice, 1967. ‘Human Rights, Real and Supposed.’ In Political Theory and the Rights of Man, ed. David, D. Raphael. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar

Cranston, Maurice, 1973. What are Human Rights?London: The Bodley Head.Google Scholar

Dixon, Sir Owen, 1965. Jesting Pilate and Other Papers and Addresses by Sir Owen Dixon. Melbourne: The Law Book Company.Google Scholar

Donnelly, Jack, 2003. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar

Donovan, Todd, Denemark, David and Bowler, Shaun, 2007. ‘Trust, Citizenship and Participation: Australia in Comparative Perspective’. In Australian Social Attitudes 2: Citizenship, Work and Aspirations, eds Denemark, David et al. Sydney: UNSW Press.Google Scholar

Fields, A. Belden, 2003. Rethinking Human Rights for the New Millennium. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRef Google Scholar

Galligan, Brian, 1990. ‘Australia's Rejection of a Bill of Rights.’ Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 28(3): 344–68.CrossRef Google Scholar

Galligan, Brian, 1994. ‘Australia's Political Culture and Institutional Design.’ In Towards and Australian Bill of Rights, ed. Alston, Philip. Canberra: Centre for International and Public Law.Google Scholar

Galligan, Brian, and McAllister, I., 1997. ‘Citizen and Elite Attitudes Towards an Australian Bill of Rights.’ In Rethinking Human Rights, eds Galligan, Brian and Sampford, C.. Sydney: Federation Press.Google Scholar

Garran, Robert, 1897. An Australian Handbook of Federal Government. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.Google Scholar

Gewirth, Alan, 1996. The Community of Rights. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

Green, Reginald Herbold, 1981. ‘Basic Human Rights/Needs: Some Problems of Categorical Translation and Unification.’ Review of International Commission of Jurists, 27 December: 53–8.Google Scholar

Hancock, William, 1961 [1930]. Australia. Reprint. London: E. Benn.Google Scholar

Hill, Lisa, 2001. ‘The First Wave of Feminism: Were the Stoics Feminists?’, History of Political Thought, 22(1), pp. 12–40.Google Scholar

Hohfeld, Wesley, 1978 [1919]. Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied to Judicial Reasoning. Reprint. Westport, CT: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Ivison, Duncan, 2008. Rights. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar

Kirby, Michael, 2000. ‘Constitutional Interpretation and Original Intent: A Form of Ancestor Worship.’ Melbourne University Law Review 24(1): 1–14.Google Scholar

Kymlicka, Will, 1989. Liberalism, Community, and Culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar

Locke, John, 1990 [1690]. Two Treatises of Government. Reprint. London: J. Dent and Sons.Google Scholar

Menzies, Robert, 1967. Central Power in the Australian Commonwealth. London: Cassell.Google Scholar

Mill, John Stuart, 1991[1863]. On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. John, Gray. Reprint. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Moffatt, R. L. C., 1965. ‘Philosophical Foundations of the Australian Constitutional Tradition.’ Sydney Law Review 5: 59–88.Google Scholar

Nickel, James, 2006. ‘Human Rights.’ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed online at www.science.uva.nl/∼seop/entries/rights-human/, 8 June 2008.Google Scholar

Ober, Josiah, 2000. ‘Quasi-Rights: Participatory Citizenship and Negative Liberties in Democratic Athens.’ Social Philosophy and Policy 17(1): 27–61.CrossRef Google Scholar

Offord, Baden, 2006. ‘Activating Human Rights Through Questions of Value and Activism.’ In Activating Human Rights, eds Porter, Elisabeth and Offord, Baden. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar

Okin, Susan Moller, 1998. ‘Feminism, Women's Human Rights, and Cultural Differences.’ Hypatia 13(2): 32–52.CrossRef Google Scholar

Ostwald, Martin, 2004. ‘Shares and Rights: Citizenship Greek Style and American Style.’ In Demokratia: A Conversation on Democracies Ancient and Modern, eds Ober, Josiah and Hendricks, Charles. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Otto, Dianne, 2001. ‘From Reluctance to Exceptionalism: The Australian Approach to Domestic Implementation of Human Rights.’ Alternative Law Journal 26(5): 219–22.CrossRef Google Scholar

Patapan, Haig, 1997. ‘The Dead Hand of the Founders? Original Intent and the Constitutional Protection of Rights and Freedoms in Australia.’ Federal Law Review 25(2): 211–36.Google Scholar

Patapan, Haig, 2000. Judging Democracy: The New Politics of the High Court of Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Quinn, Warren, 1993. Morality and Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Rubenstein, Kim, 1997. ‘Citizenship and the Constitutional Convention Debates: A Mere Legal Inference.’ Federal Law Review 25(2): 295–316.Google Scholar

Scanlon, Thomas, 2003. The Difficulty of Tolerance: Essays in Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Shue, Henry, 1996. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence and US Foreign Policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Sumner, L. W., 1987. The Moral Foundation of Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar

Williams, George, 2002. ‘Five Reasons to Rewrite the Constitution.’ In The Big Makeover: A New Constitution: Labor Essays, eds Patmore, Glenn and Jungworth, Gary. Sydney: Pluto Press.Google Scholar

Williams, George, 2004. The Case for an Australian Bill of Rights: Freedom in the War on Terror. Sydney: UNSW Press.Google Scholar

Wolff, Jonathan, 1996. An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.