Barking and Biting: The Equal Opportunity Commission as an Enforcement Agency

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Allen

Federal anti-discrimination law centres upon the individual who has experienced unlawful discrimination. To address this discrimination, the individual is required to lodge a complaint at the Australian Human Rights Commission (‘AHRC’), which will attempt to resolve the complaint using Alternative Dispute Resolution (‘ADR’). While institutions in other areas, like competition law and occupational health and safety, have a broad range of powers to enforce compliance, successive governments have chosen not to invest the AHRC with equivalent powers. Quite a different model has operated in Britain for four decades. This article analyses the role of the AHRC by comparing it to its British equivalents and examining these institutions according to the ‘enforcement pyramid’ for regulating equal opportunity, which British academics Bob Hepple, Mary Coussey and Tufyal Choudhury have developed. According to these regulatory theorists, to tackle discrimination effectively, equality commissions need to be able to follow up their loud ‘bark’ with a punitive ‘bite’ if necessary. The article concludes by identifying what the experience in both countries reveals about the enforcement of antidiscrimination laws by statutory institutions.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-55
Author(s):  
Rabia Manzoor ◽  
Syed Shujaat Ahmed ◽  
Vaqar Ahmed

Background: Dispute resolution is the process through which conflicts, misunderstandings are handled. It is an effective process for smooth functioning of any sort of organization. It further helps in maintain peace in the society as well as organization. Objective: This study seeks to appraise and evaluate the effectiveness of Dispute Resolution Councils (DRCs) in the select districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Methods: The effectiveness of ADR forums is gauged through magnitude of satisfaction and trust of beneficiaries accessing its services as well as affordability and timeliness of dispensation of justice to them. Findings: It was found that DRCs have become highly consequential to the peacemaking due to impartial setup and the provision of equal opportunity to parties involved in any case.  Conclusion: Despite the overall success of DRCs, they are still affected by problems such a poor documentation, infrastructure, lack of training and most importantly the absence of any enforcement mechanism of their decisions. Implication: This study puts forth various reforms that may include the standardization of documents, provision of sufficient capital and adequate infrastructure, and auguring the role of these avenues to strengthen the implementation of their decisions.


Author(s):  
Patrick Mutzenberg

This chapter evaluates the role played by NGOs before the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Human Rights Committee. Even if NGO participation was not originally foreseen in the Covenants, clear proceedings have subsequently been established to ensure their involvement in the Committees’ work. This chapter’s main focus is on the reporting procedure: it assesses how NGOs can submit written and oral information to strengthen this process. It also briefly addresses the NGO role in other areas of the Committees’ work, in particular the drafting of General Comments and the individual communications mechanisms. However, NGO participation is not limited to the work carried out in Geneva, and the chapter highlights recent NGO initiatives to ensure proper national implementation of the Committees’ recommendations. Such engagement is also possible in the context of the follow-up procedures, albeit to different extents depending on the practices of the respective Committee.


2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ignatieff

In a 1958 speech at the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt took stock of the progress that human rights had made since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ten years before. Mrs. Roosevelt had chaired the UN committee that drafted the Universal Declaration and had hoped that, in time, it would become “the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere.” Her answer to the question of how to measure human rights progress has become one of the most frequently quoted remarks of the former First Lady: Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home—so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel M. Lofthouse ◽  
Anthea Rose ◽  
Ruth Whiteside

PurposeThe research demonstrates the role of activity systems based in Cultural Historical Activity Theory as a means of analysing characteristics and efficacy of specific provisions of coaching in education.Design/methodology/approachThree examples of coaching in education were selected, involving 51 schools in England. The three examples were re-analysed using activity systems. This drew on existing evaluation evidence, gathered through interviews, questionnaires, focus groups and recordings of coaching.FindingsIn each example, the object of the coaching was to address a specific challenge to secure the desired quality of education. Using activity systems it is possible to demonstrate that coaching has a range of functions (both intended and consequential). The individual examples illustrate the potential of coaching to support change in complex and diverse education settings.Research limitations/implicationsThe use of existing data from evaluations means that direct comparisons between examples are not made. While data were collected throughout the duration of each coaching programme no follow-up data was available.Practical implicationsThe analysis of the examples of coaching using activity systems provides evidence of the efficacy of specific coaching provision in achieving individually defined objectives related to sustaining and improving specific educational practices.Originality/valueThe research offers insights into how coaching in education might be better tuned to the specific needs of contexts and the challenges experienced by the individuals working in them. In addition, it demonstrates the value of activity systems as an analytical tool to make sense of coaching efficacy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-130
Author(s):  
Surya Prasad Timilsena

 The present article reveals the role and policy of Armed Police Force Nepal in safeguarding human rights. One of the primary missions of the APF Nepal is to protect the citizens from criminal activity and criminal elements and to maintain public order. This duty includes protecting the rights of every citizen. Armed forces have the duty to protect the individual human rights of every person they encounter. This is an affirmative duty, meaning the police services cannot knowingly ignore or intentionally fail to act when a human rights violation is observed. The Armed Police Force has mandated tasks related to protection, promotion, respect and fulfillment of human rights from various aspects. The research has reached in conclusion: Human rights are moral principles or norms that describe certain standards of human behavior and are regularly protected as a legal right in municipal and international law. They are commonly understood as inalienable, universal and indivisible fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being. To achieve this objective APF Nepal has adopted zero tolerance in Human Rights violations and following national and international human rights instrument that have been adopted by Nepal.


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