unravelling the spaghetti bowl

[thespaghettibowl]

20th century human rights; 21st century fascism

Duncan C, Tangerine Tyrant, Flickr, 18 Feb 2017. 

Stephen Hopgood, in ‘Fascism Rising’ (published in openDemocracy (online)), states that faced with more Trump-’fascism’ in the world, human rights activists should disregard the international and focus on the domestic. That is, the problem of rising discontent and inequality among the middle class and white cannot be adequately addressed by international human rights (IHR), and perhaps even lead to the election of the Tangerine Tyrant. For Hopgood, human rights are forever associated with the liberal elite, which will be forever delegitimised in the say-it-like-it-is, alternative facts twitterverse. It is tempting to see the world from Hopgood’s eyes; the state of international consensus on human rights has been heavily and openly criticised, and after Brexit and Trump many spectators fear an unending dismantling of human rights institutions. Indeed we see Turkey’s Erdogan, once vying for a place in the EU, has now centralised and prolonged power (with questionable referendum results) and continues his crackdown on dissent.

Cathy Wilcox, High Tension in Turkey.

But none of Hopgood’s criticisms seem to be with the values espoused by human rights in general, nor their capacity to emancipate and empower. Merely with the current failure of human rights to be an effective discourse in responding to the problems of the populist base. Hopgood seems most critical of the messenger rather than the message, and that is why I cannot fathom his statement that activists must now focus on national rather than IHR. He contrasts democratic politics within national borders with castles of international normative air - the national ballot box with international law.

Samuel Moyn, in ‘Trump and the Limits of Human Rights’ (also published in openDemocracy (online)), similarly offers a pessimistic view of the future of human rights in world of the Mango Mussolini. In essence, Moyn agrees with Hopgood that human rights as it has developed (in the hands of a liberal elite tied with economic liberalism, according to Moyn) cannot offer a way forward to counter the possible rise of fascists and the popular discontents that elect them. Where Moyn differs with Hopgood, is that he does not think that the norms of international human rights law (IHRL) exist to counter distributive inequality. Where this was merely implied in Hopgood’s article. Moyn sees great achievements in IHRL, but only in the capacity to stigmatize deviant states, and especially in the International Criminal Court. Any other emancipatory wins have been exceptions to the rule. Among the failings Moyn cites that the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement have not internationalised in the name of human rights, nor does IHRL provide strong norms to deal with disadvantaged, non-citizens. Both assertions I would counter. Firstly, the Refugee Convention and its Optional Protocol were clearly created to address the needs of non-citizens and displaced persons, calling all States Parties to address the problem of forced emigration. And secondly, in a statement from the Movement for Black Lives (somewhat affiliated with BLM), their globalisation of values is clear:

‘We stand in solidarity with our international family against the ravages of global capitalism and anti-Black racism, human-made climate change, war, and exploitation. We also stand with descendants of African people all over the world in an ongoing call and struggle for reparations for the historic and continuing harms of colonialism and slavery. We also recognize and honor the rights and struggle of our Indigenous family for land and self-determination.’

Photo from Reuters, New York, 9 July 2016.

There is no denying that the IHR project has been the purview of elites for some time; legal professionals, high level politicians and diplomats, and national governments with empty promises have played IHR for decades, and can do it well. But the ballot box has never been under attack. International law has left representative government untouched, and in the ICCPR at least, encouraged representative democracies. Progressive democratic policies can be buttressed by the core IHR instruments, and supported by those elite NGOs and UN bodies. In contrast with what Moyn states in his article, the norms for redistributive policies are espoused in IHRL (see ICESCR, Committee on Economic and Social Rights comments, and jurisprudence in states that have implemented ESC Rights). Perhaps the strength is not yet there, because human rights have little direct and practical application to the lives of the suffering unless domestically incorporated. But it is only in the last 30-odd years that we have seen the uncritical marriage between neoliberalism (or economic fundamentalism) and IHR, and only if you focus on the progressive (or centre-left) political parties of select Western states, ie not including the social democratic parties of Scandinavia, or the adoption of ESC Rights in India and various Central and South American states.

Even further, I am not comfortable with the exclusionary politics that Hopgood advocates. What is there to be gained from drawing national boundaries and denying that the progressive democratic policies we achieve and develop at home can not be shared with other societies and cultures? I do not think that we can effectively create a nation of ideal conditions while ignoring the reliance this would have on the lives of people outside that nation. This is the point Moyn makes in his article, we cannot ignore the politics and economy of the new international order. In the 21st century, no country has the material, financial, or labour resources to sustain itself without recourse to a neighbour. And even it did, most nations are too far gone to stem the flow of globalisation. We rely on others for our comfortable lives, and if we deny them the equal rights to dignity then we are no worse than our Imperialist forebears - pillaging and ravaging lands inhabited by people deemed less than us. 

The future of human rights may be more ‘collaborative’, it may be more ‘grassroots’, and it may tackle ‘inequality’. But this speaks only to bottom-up protest struggles. Citizens may not regard their struggle as human rights struggles, but regardless the pressure they can/should put onto their governments is translatable to already existing human rights documents and norms. The project of IHRL has also been to speak top-down, through governments, and in this respect at least, the institutionalising and vernacularising of human rights has been partially successful. Where there is a commitment to the totality of human rights, a truly democratic and representative government cannot but implement policies that would better address the concerns of inequality (economic or civic). 

Stephen Hopgood, ‘Fascism Rising’, openDemocracy, 9 November 2016 <https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/stephen-hopgood/fascism-rising>.

Samuel Moyn, ‘Trump and the Limits of Human Rights’, openDemocracy, 14 November 2016 <https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/samuel-moyn/trump-and-limits-of-human-rights>.

The Movement for Black Lives, ‘Platform’, https://policy.m4bl.org/platform/

Hamid Dabashi, ‘Black Lives Matter and Palestine: A historic alliance’, Al Jazeera (online) 6 September 2016, <http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/09/black-lives-matter-palestine-historic-alliance-160906074912307.html>.

Daniel Boffey, ‘Turkey should investigate referendum vote 'irregularities', says EU commission’, The Guardian (online), 18 April 2017 <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/18/turkey-should-investigate-referendum-vote-irregularities-says-eu-commission>.

Jennfier Rankin, ‘Council of Europe vote puts pressure on Turkey over human rights’, The Guardian (online), 26 April 2017 <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/26/council-of-europe-turkey-human-rights-pace>.

[thespaghettibowl]

defending the indefensible: national security and human rights

Guernica, Picasso 1937. 

Human rights and national security are subject to the familiar critic cry: State sovereignty -  International human rights law (IHRL) (and lawyers) should not dictate to domestic governments on how they deal with national security issues.  

IHRL recognises these limits and many rights are subject to limitation. The UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) has noted in its General Comment 29 that States may interfere with derogable rights when there is an imminent and real threat to the life of the nation ([5]), one of these such threats includes national security. The derogation must be proportionate to the threat so that the response is targeted to a legitimate aim, there is a rational connection between this aim and the response, and the response limits rights no more than is necessary. These limits have been tested in IHRL jurisprudence, see eg International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion into Israel’s border wall, or in the European Court of Human Rights case McCann v UK on a UK soldier’s response to a supposed terrorist threat. 

States are quick to criticise such decisions, claiming that the IHRL community is infringing on the legitimate purview of domestic governments to decide how to protect their citizens. It is easy to see how the complaint is borne out: how do you decide what is a rational connection? What amount of limitation is necessary and unnecessary? Who answers these questions? How is a State government to organise its national security in anticipation that an international court might determine that it was disproportionate? And to add further fuel to the fire, what right does the IHRL community have to dictate to (mostly) democratically elected governments? While this can be somewhat countenanced by reiterating that governments enter into human rights treaties willingly and freely, and therefore consent to be bound by their terms. Jurisprudential and committee elaborations on these terms are a little further removed from what States have consented to (at least in an informed way) and with State practice, only form ‘softer’ law on States. 

It might not be ideal for international law to ever fully supplant domestic sovereignty in that field, and it is not my intention to argue this point. But at the very least, it should be a part of the conversation that we have with our governments when they make decisions around national security. The impact on human rights (as formulated by IHRL institutions) should be one of many considerations governments take into account. National security policy is an issue concerning all citizens of a nation and in democratic societies, we should have a say in how our government resources are used to ‘protect’ us. Similarly, we should have a say in what is criminalised, or what we need protecting from. Lastly, we probably should have a say in how this is achieved. We may find it useful to take advantage of the discourse human rights provides us and the mechanisms it proposes to hold governments to account. It seems eminently prudent to me that we should be able to hold governments to account when they propose measure that infringe on our human rights, and further, that governments should have to justify these interferences with regard to objective evidence of their utility and show that they have considered other options that may be less restrictive on rights. 

I would also like to make the point that we should be concerned about how we treat petty criminals, terrorists, threats to the nation-State, and ‘deviants’ generally. There is tremendous symbolism in how our governments treat fellow citizens, not just the disadvantaged and poor but (with a hint of moralism) deviants and offenders. An abrogation of rights for one group of our society has consequences for how we are perceived by our governments (and other nation’s governments). Not just because of slippery slope arguments that suppose that a derogation for one group may make it easier for more derogations. But also because it shows the fallibility of our values and rights. Often people say they are opposed to the death penalty because of what it says about us as a society, and we successfully campaigned to abolish the death penalty in this country with considerable popular support. If we are willing to abrogate rights and values in the name of security, are we sure we have not lost too much of what was worth protecting in the first place? It may be cliche of me, but I cannot help but think of books like Nineteen Eighty-Four and A Brave New World. Will our quest for the utopian ideal of security and protection deprive us too much of the moral, personal and social enrichment that makes life worth living? That is the central message that I took away from mid-twentieth century post-war novels warning against fascism and totalitarianism. This is what worries me when support for torture appears to increase (perhaps especially in the US) and our government’s willingness to implement effective indefinite detention on asylum seekers, and other prisoners who have served their full court sanctioned sentences. 

When the State decides to indefinitely detain so called terrorists because of the threat to the nation, we should demand that they establish why such an abrogation of the fundamental principle of proportional sentencing (and antecedent sentencing for that matter, considering the proliferation of preparatory and conspiratory criminal provisions) is necessary and why it should be limited to non nationals (as in the case of A and Others v UK). Closer to home and in an effort to be seen to be tougher on crime, Victorian Premier ‘Dandrews’ is looking to expand post-sentence detention of ‘serious violent offenders’ deemed unsuitable for release. What are we saying about our prison system that it cannot adequately deal with offenders so that they are no longer a risk to community safety? And if the original sentence was inadequate, what will make the extended sentence more effective? We run the risk of indefinite detention because what guarantee is there that the offender will ever be deemed suitable for release. Are we not undermining the punishment deemed just for them by, what is supposed to be, a competent and fair court system? If extended detention is necessary and proportional to the risk of harm, does this mean that the judge’s decision was not? 

These are fellow human beings with the same dignity-protecting, and life-fulfilling rights as we have. Whether they are naturally occurring or socially constructed, the purpose of rights is to promote human flourishing. We cannot deny the capacity for people to change, nor their capacity to choose not to do something in the future despite all circumstances suggesting that they will do it. CS Lewis made the point way back in 1949 (in slightly catastrophic terms), our theories of punishment must not lose sight of the liberty of the individual. Preemptive incarceration denies their liberty based on uncommitted acts and poor predictions of future events. Even worse, it ignores possible causes of crime (such as material and social conditions) that the the offender can be made morally or criminal culpable for. Indefinite detention problematises the individual (preemptively) and ignores any other structural, situational causes of crime. Addressing those causes may even promote human rights by refraining from deprivations of liberty and increasing material conditions (ie, economic and social rights). If such crime prevention and national security strategies were available or effective, it bolsters the argument further that indefinite and preemptive detention fail the minimum impairment limit at IHRL.

CCPR General Comment No. 29: Article 4: Derogations during a State of Emergency, (30 Aug 2001) <http://www.refworld.org/docid/453883fd1f.html>.

CS Lewis, (1949) ‘The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment’ The Twentieth Century: An Australian Quarterly Review, 3(3), 5-12 <http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1271&context=irp>.

Tamara Tulich, ‘Will Post-Sentence Detention of Convicted Terrirsts Make Australia Any Safer’, The Conversation, <https://theconversation.com/will-post-sentence-detention-of-convicted-terrorists-make-australia-any-safer-62980>

Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, ‘Keeping Victorians Safe from Serious Offenders’, Media Release,<http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/keeping-victorians-safe-from-serious-offenders-2/>.

Damian Carrick, ‘The Case of Rajaa Abdul - Rasool’, ABC Radio National (podcast), <http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/the-case-of-rajaa-abdul-rasool/3281790>.

Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, paras 102-142 (ICJ, July 9, 2004).

A and Others v United Kingdom, Application no. 3455/05, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 19 February 2009, available at: <http://www.refworld.org/cases,ECHR,499d4a1b2.html>  [accessed 10 May 2017].

The Queen v Rajaa Abdul-Rasool [2008] VSCA 13 [30] per Redlich JA.

Veen v R (No 2) (1988) 164 CLR 465.

McCann v United Kingdom (1996) 21 EHRR 97 paras 146-214.

[thespaghettibowl]

human rights accountability for businesses

The need for human rights to speak to businesses is more pertinent than ever. Traditional human rights law has always imposed obligations on governments and states parties. It has only ever been through them that businesses have been held liable, that is, states parties have obligations in some instances to ensure that business within its jurisdiction do not breach human rights. But this is only an ancillary obligation. The problem has compounded as political parties in many states lean towards economic neoliberalism. One tenet of which is the privatisation of government services and assets, which were seemingly enduring institutions of the now fallen welfare state system.

As government’s seek to outsource what are seen as their primary obligations under human rights instruments, how can advocates and international human rights lawyers ensure that people are not being denied their capacity to exercise their rights? 

In the lecture, much discussion was made about the government’s outsourcing of operations of our offshore processing of asylum seekers. Similarly, we see more and more governments privatising their prison systems to private security firms. These are worrying trends. Not because governments are the best at respecting human rights. But because governments are electorally accountable. As consumers we have limited capacity to hold business to account, and only recently has the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission become more active. Business are not subject to regular elections (at least not to their customers). Elections significantly check the power of the state and empowers the ordinary citizen to an extreme degree.

While market regulation has a role to play, the market does not (as it stands) regard international human rights law as a contingency. Consumers are much more likely to advocate for a brand to bring back an old, discontinued chip flavour than they would boycott a human rights breaching brand. Knowing that our Auskick footies are made in sweatshops, or any of our cheap, fast fashion these days, does not seem to translate to effective consumer action. Even further, most of the people who would be affected by the business’s practices I’ve outlined above (prison and security services) are also not in a position to either boycott the services or exert any other means of economic pressures. How can an asylum seeker detained by Serco refuse Serco’s services? The people at risk of harm by these business rely on everyone else to exert pressure.

If your clothes’ budget has been cut down and you buy bargain dresses, it is only fair you should know who pays part of your bill—the women who made the dress. . .  The red silk bargain dress in the shop window is a danger signal. It is a warning of the return of the sweatshop, a challenge to us all to reinforce the gains we have made in our long and difficult progress toward a civilized industrial order. — Frances Perkins, ‘The Cost of a Five-Dollar Dress‘ (Survey Graphic, 1933).

The argument that people in abusive jobs may lose those jobs and by extension their liveliehoods if we boycott a brand is spurious. No one advocates for that. We advocate for respect of human rights, one of which would be fair remuneration and safety in work. If a business can’t sustain these standards then it shouldn’t be in business. Either accountability is gained through the government (who then ensure business practices are in line with Australia’s human rights obligations) or a treaty that speaks directly to businesses. The former is more likely, but still not probable. Businesses could adopt codes that encourage them to respect human rights, but government would need to ensure that those codes are met, including through their overseas supply chains.

Marilyn Croser, ‘Human rights violations have increased 70% since 2008 globally‘, The Guardian (online), 9 September 2014.

[thespaghettibowl]

rights speak to equality, but do the unequal speak of rights?

John Lewis, March: Book Two (illustrated by Nate Powell) (Top Shelf, 2015).

My problem with using international human rights law, and is discourse, to advocate for equality causes is the same problem (I suspect) that David Kennedy, Eric Posner, or Samuel Moyn have with using human rights language to talk about poverty problems. International human rights law is the bread and butter of elite professionals working in high government positions, or in non-governmental organisations. It does not seem to me to be the language of many people who could actually benefit from having their human rights better recognised.

As much as I would like to argue for things like marriage equality - or equality of access to public bathrooms for trans people, or access and reasonable accommodation for people with disability - I’m not convinced that the people I would hope to be helping would be encouraged by my rhetoric or my means. If good human rights lawyering is about participatory advocacy (like in the Disability Rights sphere, nothing about us without us campaign), then asking what people experiencing inequality want and supporting them to address those issues may not elicit the response: ‘help us implement IHRL’. 

From the lecture it is obvious that existing HR instruments and jurisprudence provide a smorgasbord to rely on in support of advocating for change or to critique government action. For instance, the Human Rights Legal Centre submission on the Marriage Amendment (Same-Sex Marriage) Bill draws on a South African decision to interpret the right to equality and to be free from discrimination, and critiques the Bill’s protection of conscientious belief by reference to the UN Human Rights Council General Comment No 22. The lecturer mentioned that part of advocacy is being politically savvy, indeed she explained to us generally the different strategies that may need to be employed depending on what political philosophy you are encountering. But it seems to me, in terms of speaking to a populist base, it would not be in most cases politically savvy to speak in terms of human rights. I appreciate that a submission to government can engage in the international human rights law jurisprudence more than would a town hall meeting or a national ad campaign. 

Ultimately though, it makes me particularly disheartened that there is significant stigma and difficulty in speaking in human rights terms at the pub, or at the water cooler, to advocate for a better world. There is a wealth of academia, jurisprudence, commentary, primary and secondary legislative-like instruments that exist expanding, exploring and developing how human standards can be improved to achieve the aspirational goals of human rights. It’s a shame that these cannot be drawn on, or influence our popular and common opinions about the everyday disadvantages and inequalities in our lives. I would like to see a concerted and directed campaign to change this state of popular discourse. The image above is a page from a graphic novel based around the experiences of current US Congressman John Lewis as an organiser in the Civil Rights movement group Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (’SNCC’). That movement was not about international human rights, but it was about rights. The rights to participate in civil society. One of the most recent and relatively successful political campaigns revolved around proposed cuts to Australia’s healthcare system. But the Save our Medicare campaign never really relied on the fact that we have a human right to healthcare. Similarly, the current campaign around education funding doesn’t argue the case in terms of the human right to education. 

[thespaghettibowl]

In Billy Bragg’s The Internationale the first verse reads as follows:

Stand up all victims of oppression For the tyrants fear your might Don't cling so hard to your possessions For you have nothing if you have no rights Let racist ignorance be ended For respect makes the empires fall Freedom is merely privilege extended Unless enjoyed by one and all

The Internationale has obvious communistic roots, and the line ‘don’t cling so hard to your possessions’ belie this. But the theme of the Billy Bragg’s version is not so ideologically confined. His talk of oppression, rights, and freedom are all themes that I feel Economic, Social and Cultural rights seek to address too. For obvious reasons, these rights were the subject of fierce ideological debates between the USSR and American (and their respective allies). The story of the song is essentially redistributive, and it speaks to the disutility of freedom without equality. 

In my work as an electorate officer for a Federal Member of Parliament, I speak to many constituents who are concerned or affected by the government's proposed laws and policies. After the budget was announced, I had a call from a constituent regarding the proposed drug testing of welfare recipients.

The Australian government's 2017 budget proposed to introduce a drug testing programme for welfare recipients. The programme intends to test 5,000 randomly selected recipients of Newstart and Youth Allowance payments for cannabis, methamphetamine, and ecstasy. A recipient who fails the test once will be placed on a cashless welfare card (which limits the use of the money to specified purchases). A person who fails the test more than once would be referred for medical assessment and possible treatment (not provided by the government). A penalty applies to recipients who refuse to submit to drug testing. This is in addition to introducing a demerit points system for recipients who fail to meet mutual obligation requirements, the highest penalty of which is cancellation of payment and a four week exclusion from reapplying. (It is in effect less of a demerit points system but graduated penalty system.)

The constituent told me about her son who had suffered from substance misuse problems in the past. She explained to me that if her son had not had access to welfare, he would have found it harder to treat his problem, struggled to support himself at all, and it likely would have pushed him into committing other crimes. She was distraught as to the possible effects the measures would have on others in a similar disadvantaged position; especially that it criminalised and stigmatised individuals so harshly. I told the constituent that I full-heartedly agreed with her, not something I often get to say in my job. My concern with the proposals is that it criminalises and punishes people on welfare, and those with substance misuse issues, rather than taking any restorative, rehabilitative, or preventative steps to tackle the causes and consequences of the issue. It is a law and order response to what is rather an issue of poverty and disadvantage.

I noticed that I did not think about the proposals in human rights terms, and the constituent definitely did not talk about the issue in this way either. But it is quite easy to discuss them as a human rights problem. The use of a cashless welfare card limits a person’s autonomy by restricting their liberty to use their money for the purchases they choose (contra the statement in art 1(2) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)). It  also has implications for equality before the law; use and possession of illicit substances is illegal for all individuals, but welfare recipients are targeted by these programmes and subject to special regulation above everyone else. They are treated with prima facie suspicion of committing a crime, and subject to invasive tests that interfere with their privacy and bodily integrity. The triggering factor for the interference with their rights are that they are disadvantaged enough to receive welfare payments and are exercising their right to access social security payments. Importantly, receiving welfare is not a crime but rather, an internationally recognised human right. 

The right to social security is recognised in Article 9 of ICESCR. ICESCR also recognises inter alia the rights to health (art 12), education (arts 13 and 14), and housing (art 11). The preamble to ICESCR states that material conditions promoting its expounded rights are essential for achieving the ideal of free human beings who enjoy freedom from fear and want. The preamble also recognises the social duties individuals have to one another and their community in promoting these rights. It is essentially an idealistic and aspirational document in the sense that it sets forth and promotes an image of humanity whereby people have the material conditions to support their self determination and full enjoyment and exercise of their rights. Social security, healthcare, education, and housing all intend to alleviate suffering and poverty and to empower the disadvantaged to greater self fulfilment. It could be said that there is a socially democratic, and redistributive emphasis behind ICESCR that encourages states to direct resources towards these ends in recognition of the barriers to exercising rights and protection of human dignity.  Further, because states have an obligation to individuals and the community, it is beholden on them to introduce poverty alleviating measures. In essence, poverty is the responsibility of everyone, and governments are beholden to take measures to address it. 

While ICESCR recognises that these measures can be progressively realised and subject to resource limitations (art 2(1)), it is not open to states to indefinitely put off attempting to fulfil its freely assumed obligations under the treaty. In the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ Third General Comment, the Committee noted that progressive realisation did not mean that state parties did not need to take steps towards full realisation. The Committee also stated that ICESCR ‘imposes an obligation to move as expeditiously and effectively as possible’, and any ‘retrogressive measures in that regard would require the most careful consideration and would need to be fully justified by reference to the totality of the rights’.

Further, art 4 of ICESCR states that any limit on such rights must be lawful, compatible with the nature of the rights, and ‘solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society’. By implementing the proposed measures, the Australian government would have to pass them into law (it likely intends to do so). However it is hard to see how they could be in keeping with the nature of ICESCR rights to limit access to welfare generally. The government could argue that it intends to target criminals who take drugs, and reducing the incidence of which would promote the general welfare. But it is hard to see how the measures would promote general welfare overall and could be justified with reference to the totality of rights. They introduce a penalty system, reduce the availability of an essential safety net for the nation's most disadvantaged, potentially increase the incidence of crime (by depriving legal access to money and incentivising illegitimate ways to get money such as theft), and criminalise people with substance abuse issues (with all the stigma that goes with it). A more comprehensive, rights focus would aim to increase access to healthcare and be slower to deny a person's social security, perhaps at the very least, guarantee substance misuse treatment programs for people who fail tests. 

Department of Social Services, ‘Welfare Reform: 2017 Budget’, Factsheet, May 2017 <https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/05_2017/budget_2017_-_welfare_reform_-_fact_sheet_for_web_0.pdf>.

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, GA Res 2200A (XXI), 16 December 1966 (entered into force 3 January 1976) <http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CESCR.aspx>.

Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General comment No. 3:  The nature of States parties’ obligations (art. 2, para. 1, of the Covenant), Fifth Sess, 1990.

Rashida Yosufzai, ‘Budget 2017: Welfare recipients to be drug tested’ SBS News (online), 10 May 2017 <http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/05/09/budget-2017-welfare-recipients-be-drug-tested>.

Josh Butler, ‘Here's How The Welfare Drug Tests Will Work’, Huffington Post (online), 10 May 2017 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/05/10/heres-how-the-welfare-drug-tests-will-work_a_22078785/>.

Hon Christian Porter, Social Services Minister, ‘A fairer welfare system that supports more people into work’, Media Release, 9 May 2017  <http://christianporter.dss.gov.au/media-releases/a-fairer-welfare-system-that-supports-more-people-into-work>

[thespaghettibowl]

Public Domain. 1820 painting depicting Arjuna, left on the chariot, with Krishna, the charioteer. Pivotal moment, the ‘Bhagavadgita’, in the Mahabharata where Arjuna follows the guidance of Krishna to fulfil his duty to his nation despite his misgivings about the necessary killing and suffering caused by the war. From the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

Amartya Sen in The Idea of Justice describes this as an argument between a deontologist (someone concerned with just actions) and a consequentialist (someone concerned with the consequences of the action) (23). 

Civil and Political Rights: positive, negative and interdependent.

The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (‘UDHR’) declares all persons equal in dignity and rights by virtue of their birth. This conception of universal rights was heavily influenced by enlightenment, liberal philosophy such as Locke, Montesquieu, Kant, and Mill. These thinkers characterised rights primarily in terms of freedoms from state intervention into a person’s natural rights. According to the liberalist conception, a person is a rational actor with the capacity to choose their own method of self-determination. The freedom from intervention protects the essence of personhood and therefore some areas of life are deemed beyond the reach of the state.

This traditional conception of rights has been heavily criticised and the contemporary theory is that rights require both protection from intervention as well as the creation of resources, institutions, and structures to support exercising those rights meaningfully. However, it is clear that the traditional conception of right to life, as a negative freedom from deprivation of life, is a deontological argument. It is morally impermissible to deprive a citizen of their life under the rights in the ICCPR, art 6(1) therefore restricts state action, no matter the result. However there are further substantial, and positive obligations in art 6 that include paras (2) and (4), which envisage the existence of a competent court to give final judgment and an appropriate avenue to seek pardon or commutation of a death sentence, respectively. These would require more than mere prohibition but actual state action in the creation of (legal) frameworks to litigate these rights.  

Beyond these substantial provisions, jurisprudence on the right to life shows that even art 6(1) can be interpreted as obligating states parties for positive steps to its realisation. In Rodriguez v Honduras, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights said that it was not enough that the Honduran government could not be proven to have actually killed the victims in the case, but that it needed to have in place effective measures that would prevent the effective deprivation of life of its citizens, and provide for the ‘free and full exercise of human rights’ [167]. Further, in the Indian case Olga Tellis v Bombay Municipal Corporation (1986) AIR SC 180, the court interpreted the right to life to include a right to livelihood. This takes the right to life from a negative prohibition on deprivation of life to the requirement that the state implement measures to ensure that the health, employment, and education of citizens were not unnecessarily deprived when pursuing its policies. 

I like Sen’s analysis in his book, because it shows that the debates between formal and substantial justice have existed for centuries, and across cultures. It also shows that this debate is likely to continue to challenge our approach to governance and human rights. It seems eminently clear to me that why we do something, and the consequences of what we do should both bear on our desire to do it. What we do must be morally just, and we must seek just ends. Positive and negative rights are interdependent to achieving equality, both formally and substantially. For example, the right to life is useless without the access to healthcare services, likewise the right to education is useless without freedom of expression, thought and opinion. I feel that while we may seek out utopian ideals of equality and equity, if we do not seek to achieve them in ways that also give effect to equality and equity, then we have corrupted our own principles. 

Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (Penguin, 2009). 

Universal Declaration on Human Rights, GA Res 217A (III), UN GAOR, 3rd sess, 183rd plen mtg, UN Doc A/810 (10 December 1948) art 1.

Burns H Weston, Human rights (14 March 2016) Britannica, Academic Edition <https://www.britannica.com/topic/human-rights>

John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government: and a Letter Concerning Toleration (Basil Blackwell, 1946) [61].

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (Anne M Cohler et al (eds) trans, Cambridge University Press, 1989) [trans of: De l'esprit des loix (first published 1748)]

Immanuel Kant, ‘The Doctrine of Virtue’, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (H J Paton trans, 1964) 116 [25] [trans of: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (first published 1797)]

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Oxford University Press, 1865) 6, 11

Karl Klare, ‘Legal Theory and Democratic Reconstruction’ (1991) 25 University of British Columbia Law Review 69, 97–8.

Velasquez Rodriguez v Honduras, Judgement of July 29 1988 IACHR (Ser C No 4 28 ILM (1989) 294 paras 147-188. 

Olga Tellis v Bombay Municipal Corporation (1986) AIR SC 180 (India) (extract from H Steiner and P Alston, International Human Rights in Context: Law Politics and Morals (2nd Edition, Oxford University Press, 2000) 286-291.

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domestic (non)enforceability

Despite the significant development of institutions (the Commission of Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court, and various treaty bodies) the rights contained within treaties are not judicially enforceable at the international level due to deference to state sovereignty. In only some countries are human rights so enforceable, and there are some regional human rights systems where supranational courts can determine the legality of government action according to human rights (see eg, European Court on Human Rights). In Australia, international treaties remain unenforceable unless codified in domestic law (see Al-Kateb, Minister of State for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Teoh) and to some extent while similar rights have been codified in Victoria’s state system, their enforceability still remains questionable (Momcilovic; cf Slaveski v Smith). It is clear then that in Australia at least, human rights are not enforceable in the same way as, for instance, contractual rights. 

I feel that without enforceability, we lose what Patricia Williams (in her book The Alchemy of Race and Rights) describes as the empowering function of rights for people disadvantaged by inequality. If a breach of your right does not found a substantial cause of action, it certainly lacks significant value, at least in the legal system. It may be that without the emergence of human rights as a concept, injustices like Separate-but-Equal, Apartheid, the Stolen Generation would have continued without a unifying, rights-based language to criticise them. And the significant symbolic power of rights language should not be undermined, but nor should we lose sight of the importance of enforceability. 

Noting the significant advancement of Critical Legal Studies in elucidating the pitfalls of traditional legal theory, Williams is weary that abandoning rights belies the significant power it can have for achieving equality. She describes the inequality between how landlords treated her compared to a white man. Noting that her colleague was at pains to avoid over emphasising his power in the transaction, while she had to overcome that she had none (147). For Williams, her experience in private law of contract was tainted by the knowledge that at a time she would have been recognised as only three-fifths of a person, actively traded as alienable property, and even in the 20th Century she was overcoming stereotypes that she was unreliable, irrational and powerless. Ultimately, she argues that legal rights have some utility in addressing this power imbalance. 

It is incredibly disconcerting to me, that as a liberal democracy, Australia still lacks legal codification of basic human rights. Unlike the US, we have no constitutional bill of rights, unlike other nations we have no Human Rights Act. Human rights are supposed to be there to support the lives of the people, their political, civil, recreational lives altogether. It is concerning that in Australia there is very little agitation to change this state of affairs. 

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Implementation: When Rights Meet

The ICCPR and the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities both recognise that circumstances will arise where the enjoyment of one right will conflict with the enjoyment of another (art 21 and ss 7, 15(3)(a), respectively). For example, in 2015 the Victorian Government passed the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Safe Access Zone) Act 2015 which limited a person’s right to protest within a specified range of abortion clinics and providers, where women were exercising their right to health. Relevantly, many who objected to the provision of abortion services also claim the exclusion zones abrogated their right to freedom of religion. 

© First Dog on the Moon

A contemporary and live example is the current debate over the breadth of s 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Notably, this debate engages both the right to freedom from racial discrimination (art 18 ICCPR), and the right to freedom of expression (art 19 ICCPR). The relevant question that our democratic society has to deal with is how do we deal with respecting both claims to fundamental human rights when they seemingly have inconsistent outcomes? Such questions necessarily invite a discussion about what society values more, which is more important, and what values do we want to encourage and what society do we want to be. Proponents of s 18C say that it discourages racial hatred, protects people from the harms caused by racism (overt and covert), and encourages a more tolerant society. The opponents vary, but argue that it encroaches too far on free speech, that it is ambiguous and incapable of application, that it is overly protective and paternalistic. Offence and insult are subjective and therefore unworkable, but also, to outlaw such things is an overreach of the state, and an imposition of political values over the free expression, thought and opinions of citizens (akin to social control). These arguments are necessarily competing for their vision of Australian society. In the protracted and politicised climate of Australian debates currently, it has quickly descended and reduced to arguments for multiculturalism on the one hand, and freedom in the other. Without regard for the interdependence of both freedom from racial discrimination and freedom of speech to a pluralist, and free democratic society. 

In Europe, the conflict between the two rights has (d)evolved to quite a striking result. Bizarrely, in Dahlab v Switzerland, in a later decision SAS v France, and more recently in two European Court of Justice cases (Achbita v G4S Secure Solutions, Bougnaoui v Micropole Univers), European human rights jurisprudence has set precedents justifying bans on Islamic headdresses in public places, public schools, or secular workplaces. In particular, reliance for these claims has been on the idea that citizens in Switzerland, Belgium and France have a right to be free from religion, an emphasis on secularism. And further, that living together in these democratic societies means engaging with each other’s faces in conversation (in SAS v France), an inability to do so is an affront to the capacity to live together. In the workplace cases, the European court has said that such bans are only justified where codified in employer policy, the employer professes secularism and the worker is engaged in client faced work. For the contrasting view see the Canadian case Multani v Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys which denied that a ban on a student wearing symbols of the Sikh religion could be justified on pursuing a legitimate aim in a free and democratic society. The court specifically stresses that outward expressions of religion are essential to free, democratic and multicultural societies (paras [71]-[6]). Like in the 18C debate, the court in Europe weighed up competing rights claims and in the process grappled with a normative question about what kind of society ought to be encouraged. Ultimately, justifying the ban on the same reasons that the Canadian court rejected a similar ban. The European court in SAS v France defers to the principle of margin of appreciation, whereby the state has some leeway in implementing its policies due to its democratic mandate (that the court supposedly does not have to second guess the government). It considered that it was the purview of the French government to determine what kind of society it wanted its citizens to live in (secular, or without Islamic headscarves). 

Arguably, these such arguments and contestations bring legitimacy to the deliberative school of thought on human rights. That human rights are contested, and borne out of negotiations and concessions by empowered actors at the international stage. Rights are not immutable or beyond criticism, and compromises must necessarily be made. To an extent, the deliberative school recognises pluralism and differences of opinion on the content or conception of human rights between interpretative actors. As a law student with a (romantic) belief that law should be used for emancipation, I would argue that human rights, in this deliberative context, should be used to argue only for the emancipation of the disadvantaged. That human rights claims have the capacity to equalise formal opportunities and substantial, material equality. Freedom of expression has historically been possessed and accessible only to the privileged few, and as this franchise expands, those who held the rights - exclusively for the most part - are confronted with the prospect of losing the power afforded a privileged elite. When Cory Bernardi MP argues that he no longer has the right to freedom of opinion, he does so only because more people have the right to freedom of religion (and expression of that religion). It is a decreasing of the space that he is able to claim for his opinions, redistributed to members of our society that have been denied equal standing. It would be perverse to the goal of human rights (to enfranchise, equalise, and emancipate), to accept the moans of the privileged that their hegemony on rights is under attack.

© Cathy Wilcox

For information on the 18C debate see the following

Tim Soutphommasane, Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/03/04/3956752.htm

Waleed Aly, public commentator: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/05/27/3767961.htm

Freedom of expression and its limits under ICCPR: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/background-paper-human-rights-cyberspace/4-permissible-limitations-iccpr-right-freedom

Freedom of religion under ICCPR: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/freedom-thought-conscience-and-religion-or-belief

Castan Centre on the state as implementers of human rights, and Australia’s federal parliamentary system, and its approach to implementing human rights law: https://castancentre.com/2017/03/01/18c-report-raises-questions-about-joint-committee-on-human-rights-role/.

Freedom of faith or culture (freedom from criticism of them), and freedom of expression can lead to issues on both sides. The following are just some examples that I found. 

The rise of ethnic nationalism, and the bounds of freedom of expression and self determination, ‘We can’t restore civilization with other peoples babies’ : http://www.salon.com/2017/03/13/rep-steve-king-has-thoughts-on-race-i-am-a-champion-for-western-civilization/. Further to this growing disposition, see also the comments in a De Minimis (online) article ‘Dear White People of MLS’: http://www.deminimis.com.au/home/dear-white-people-of-mls. 

Special rapporteur on the extent of freedom of religion: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomReligion/Pages/FreedomReligionIndex.aspx

On criticising religion, and the trouble with Western pursuit of freedom of religion against the freedoms of people actually within those religions see Infidel: My Life by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (or Infidel).

Cardinal Pell’s comments in 2013, advocating for greater religious freedom without fear of reprisal. Cardinal Pell argues that while religious freedom in Australia isn’t a matter of life and death, it has seen differential treatment of those who identify as religious: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/08/23/3832073.htm. He does this with rank disregard of the high suicide and self harm rates of young LGTBI religious individuals (see Hiller et al, ‘I coudn’t do both at the same time’ (2008); Beyond Blue, (2013); Sucide Prevention Australia, (2009)). And a fair disregard for victims of institutional abuse for that matter. 

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critique: pluralism and its discontents

An enduring criticism of the conception of human rights as universal is that it fails to take into account the pluralism of legal systems and morals. Many of the rights contained in the ICCPR, for example, have their origins in Western Liberal scholars such as Locke, Montesquieu, and JS Mill, and can be traced through the rights developed in a select few countries like France and the US. As a pluralist and a relativist, I would argue that despite the embeddedness of this conception of rights, propagating them without criticism or dialogue descends into soft colonialism (soft in the sense that we, for the most part, do not invade with military force those who disagree with us). The problem can be likened to top-down direction, whereby a global North (or West, however termed) dictates to those deemed less civilised what values they should have. Such propagation, even of human rights, is likely to experience pushback and is open to criticism for failing to recognise the moral agency and common humanity of those we dictate to.

David Kennedy in a 2001 article took to task International Human Rights Law as it had developed since the mid-20th century, and I argue that Kennedy saw this monism and elitism as part of the failure of human rights as it stood in 2001. 

Kennedy sees human rights law as best when it is built by the people, struggled for and imagined in new ways’ (2001, 25), not where it is merely voyeuristic (24), nor ripped from context or contestation (25). To this end, he considers that part of the crises of the Human Rights Commission was the ‘appalling human rights record of governments that have served’ on it (26), and the propensity for human rights as a ‘vocabulary of the center against the periphery, a vehicle for, rather than an antidote to empire’ (26).  Instead he prefers an acknowledgement and use of the ‘plural and heterogeneous moral possibilities within the West, the rest, the center, the periphery’ (26). 

Ultimately this is emblematic of the way Kennedy sees human rights as it has developed. He starts his article by declaring that human rights has done great good and in support of this it has ‘amassed an enormous library of legal norms and aspirational declarations’ and in this shadow a ‘complex institutional practice’ has emerged (Kennedy, 2001, p 19). He talks of human rights transforming into both a professional practice, a movement, and governance.

However, it is clear that Kennedy is concerned about the piety and separation of human rights from groundswell struggles and protests (perhaps, Kennedy is a protest theorist according to Dambour?). He says, human rights needs interdisciplinary scrutiny and should no longer be shy of openly criticising its failures (’lest mixing the one with the other damage the endeavor or discourage the donors’ (Kennedy, 2001, 22)). 

Stephen Hopgood in a chapter in a book debating the ‘Endtimes of Human Rights’ similarly notes the great achievements of human rights since the 1970s. He notes the proliferation of international covenants expanding and particularising the twin covenants (ICCPR and ICESCR), the establishment of human rights institutions, and how human rights as language of governance and advocacy has entered the mainstream (Hopgood, 12). However, similarly to Kennedy, he argues that human rights are undermined when governments act without fear of reprisal themselves but impose human rights standards on others. For instance, former President Obama insisting the US soldiers had no reason to fear the International Criminal Court (14). Where human rights language has entered the mainstream governance of Western governments but is nonetheless abused for perverse ends. 

However, Hopgood highlights what can be described as the pitfalls of pluralism. For instance, he notes the unfavourable approaches by many countries to LGBTI  human rights, for example in Uganda, Russia, China, and India (14). Further, he suggests that the human rights project may need a ‘liberal superpower’ to support it (16), and questions the capacity for human rights language to continue to form the arguments between states or within them (16-7). To this end, he says that there is significant contestation between states about human rights, within human rights advocates, and between the secular Europe (with the US) and more religious nations (17).  He notes the capacity for religious norms to influence morality, public justice, personality, and citizenship and believes this pluralism ultimately belies human rights as an authoritative conscience to survive the 21st century (18). 

Patricia J Williams is a legal theorist who has argued that the criticisms of rights language largely ignores the significant utility it does have in empowering the disenfranchised and disadvantaged. In a chapter titled ‘The Pain of Word Bondage’ in her book The Alchemy of Race and Rights, Williams explores her experience with teaching and learning the American law of contracts, and compares her experience as a woman of colour attempting to rent apartments with the experience of her colleague who is a white man (1991, 146). 

Rights, as legally enforceable claims, can go some way in balancing an inequality in power between individuals. This is to some extent a counter to the criticisms posed by Hopgood, that human rights language is dawned to recede. Williams’ conception of rights is more than mere language, the utility of rights is more than that what they say, but how they can be used. It is easy to criticise rights from the position of someone whose rights are not contestable, or are assumed to be the holder of rights, and this ignores that rights in the hands of the oppressed can be used to challenge their oppression. Admittedly it is not a full counter. The utility of rights is true in the private law of contract to some extent, however it is contestable whether human rights law can be similarly emancipatory. The ultimate goal for human rights may still be achieving enforceability and universality, but its utility should not be forgotten. Especially in Australia, we lack real human rights in the same sense that we have private property rights. 

Stephen Hopgood, ‘The Endtimes of Human Rights’, in Doutje Lettinga and Lars van Troost (eds), Debating the Endtimes of Human Rights: Activism and Institutions in a Neo-Westphalian World (2014), 11-18.  

David Kennedy, ‘The International Human Rights Regime, Still Part of the Problem?’ in Rob Dickinson et al (eds), Examining Critical Perspectives on Human Rights, (Chamber University Press, 2013), 19-34. 

Patricia J Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, (Harvard University Press, 1991), 146-166.

See also:

Posner, ‘The Case  against Human Rights’ The Guardian (online), 2014. 

Conor Gearty: on veto and major powers pursuing own conceptions of human rights, as hypocrisy and the problem with institutionalism. See Gearty, ‘The UN and Human Rights: Time for a Great Awakening’. 

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In Memory of RFK, by Sister Corita Kent (1968)

‘Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. R.F.K. 

Look where Christ's blood streams in the firmament Look where your brother is Splash'd. R. Lax’

Origins and Evolution

Sister Corita Kent was born in 1918 in the state of Iowa. Sister Corita was a nun, artist, and activist. Like the quote she has used here, attributed to RFK, Kent stated that she favoured using screenprinting in her art because she felt that it was the best way to reach the democratic masses. An affordable way to distribute art and its ideas, her messages could be reproduced like the ripples of hope that RFK spoke of. The Catholic church criticised Sister Corita as blasphemous. She left the church in 1968. Sister Corita died in 1986. 

Robert F Kennedy was born in 1925 in the state of Massachusetts. RFK was a US Senator and Attorney-General in the 1960s. RFK sent the National Guard to Montgomery, Alabama to protect the Civil Rights activists and followers of Martin Luther King Jr. He sent US Marshals to enforce the admittance of Black Americans into the state university in Mississippi. RFK was a devoted catholic, and his brother, the first to be president of the United States, had faced fear and prejudice because of this. RFK was assassinated in 1968. 

Sirhan Sirhan was born in 1944 in the city of Jerusalem. Sirhan is a Palestinian, who was born into an Orthodox Christian family.  Sirhan assassinated RFK because of RFK’s military support of Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The year before the assassination, Israel bombed almost all of Egypt’s air force and in the ensuing conflict captured the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the trial, Sirhan asked to be executed for the crime. Sirhan’s 20 year malice for Israel had erupted into murder. In 1969, he was sentenced to the death penalty. Three years later the California Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional according to the State’s constitution, for being incompatible with the dignity of man. With popular support, California subsequently amended its constitution to permit the death penalty. Sirhan is still in custody at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County, California. The Gaza Strip and West Bank are now under Palestinian Authority, Israel still occupies East Jerusalem. 

In Marie-Benedicte Dembour’s article ‘What are human rights? Four Schools of Thought’, Dembour outlines four conceptions of human rights. Namely; Natural, Protest, Deliberative, and Discursive. The natural theorist sees human rights as universal and absolute, with origins that transcend society and people. A Catholic may argue that all human beings are created by one supreme being and because of the specialness accorded to us by that being, we must respect each other as god’s creation. The deliberative theorist believes human rights are socially constructed, and the result of compromise and consensus between authoritative agents and representatives. In this sense, human rights are argued for in a deliberative process and once those standards are set can be delivered and protected for the wider community. The protest theorist asserts the universality of human rights, and is focussed on the conflict for achieving those rights for the disempowered. Finally the discursive sees human rights as purely socially constructed, with relative meaning according to cultural and political contexts that change in time and between individuals. 

Relevantly, Sister Corita, RFK and Sirhan could all be described as protest human rights activists in certain ways. Sister Corita’s art focussed on social inclusion and welfare of individuals, and the spread of love and tolerance to achieve this. RFK demonstrated a commitment to the Civil Rights movement in America while in government, and may even be inflected towards the deliberative conception because his work was conducted through governmental institutions. Sirhan was avowedly moved by the struggle for self-determination by his country and the protection of the rights of his fellow Palestinians. Each show a belief in the capacity for their acts in defence of human rights to infiltrate and connect with others in their community for the greater good. However, RFK’s support for Israeli militarism, and Sirhan’s violent means of asserting Palestine’s right to exist, demonstrate the complexity of human rights. In particular its reported failing in regards to universality, state sovereignty and paramountcy, and effective enforcement. What is there to make of Sirhan’s request for the death penalty? How can one advocate for civil rights in one sense, but be apart of an administration that invaded a sovereign country to overthrow a democratically elected government (Vietnam war) or provide armaments and military aid so that Israel can displace Palestinians and deny them their right to exist?

Marie-Benedicte Dembour ‘What are human rights? Four Schools of Thought’ (2010) 32 Human Rights Quarterly 1.

The People of the State of California v. Robert Page Anderson, 493 P.2d 880, 6 Cal. 3d 628 (Cal. 1972)

‘The tumultuous times of Corita Kent’ Sr. Rose Pacatte (3 Aug 2016) in National Catholic Reporter (online) <https://www.ncronline.org/books/2016/08/tumultuous-times-corita-kent>

© Courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles, Harvard Art Museum http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/328978