A Shift in the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s Jurisprudence on Marriage Equality? An Analysis of Two Recent Communications from Australia

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar I Roos ◽  
Anita Mackay
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Marriage Equality ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has not considered whether the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘ICCPR’) encompasses a right to marry a person of the same sex since 2002 in Joslin v New Zealand. In Joslin v New Zealand the Committee determined that the right to marry contained in article 23(2) of the ICCPR referred only to opposite-sex marriage, and it foreclosed any separate claim based on the general right of nondiscrimination contained in article 26 of the ICCPR. This article maintains that two recent communications to the Committee from Australia, C v Australia and G v Australia, prefigure a shift in the Committee’s jurisprudence on marriage equality. Although the Views adopted in 2017 by the Committee in each communication do not expressly disapprove of Joslin v New Zealand, on close analysis they support a re-interpretation of the right to marry which encompasses a right to marry a person of the same sex. In the alternative, in the event that the Committee continues to adhere to the Joslin v New Zealand interpretation of the right to marry, G v Australia and C v Australia support a determination that a State Party which fails to provide for marriage equality violates the article 26 right to non-discrimination.

scholarly journals Trading in influence: a research agenda for New Zealand?

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Gluck ◽  
Michael Macaulay
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Money Laundering ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The United Nations

In November 2015 the Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill was passed by Parliament. An omnibus bill, it amended numerous different acts in relation to (among other things) money laundering, organised crime, corruption and bribery offences. One of its stated aims was to bring New Zealand legislation up to date to enable New Zealand to finally ratify the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), which it did in December that year. The merits and potential demerits of the bill have been discussed previously (Macaulay and Gregory, 2015), but one thing that requires further attention is the creation of a new offence of ‘trading in influence’.

scholarly journals ‘The Hero Stuff’ and the ‘Softer Side of Things’:  Exploring Masculinities in Gendered Police Reform in  Timor-Leste

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Marianne Bevan
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
Police Reform ◽  
Gender Policy ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
Gender Policies ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Capacity Building Programme

<p>This thesis investigates how New Zealand and East Timorese police officers involved in United Nations’ police reform understand and conceptualise masculinities. It explores how these conceptualisations compare to how masculinities are defined and outlined in United Nations’ gender policies. The United Nations have increasingly attempted to address gender in their policing work; however, within these policies, gender has continued to be equated with women and women’s issues while men’s gender identities remain invisible. My research contributes to emerging discussions about how an understanding of masculinities could be better incorporated into gendered police reform. I explore this through the case of the New Zealand Police Community Policing Pilot Programme (CPPP), a capacity building programme carried out within the wider United Nations Police mission in Timor-Leste. By speaking to New Zealand and East Timorese police officers, this research articulates how police officers themselves conceptualise policing masculinities and interpret how masculinities are framed in gender policy. My research finds that within both the East Timorese Police and the New Zealand Police involved in the CPPP, there is evidence of a variety of policing masculinities. These findings highlight the fluidity of masculinity and the processes that police officers can go through in order to challenge problematic constructions of masculinity. This provides important theoretical and practical insights into how positive masculinities can be promoted through gendered approaches to police reform. By investigating the ways in which the police interpret the United Nations’ approach to gender, this research finds that the continued framing of gender as a women’s issue in policy acts as a barrier to the police seeing masculinities as part of gendered reform.</p>

Trusteeship Council

1947 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-343
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
The United States ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
First Session

The last of the main organs of the United Nations to begin functioning, the Trusteeship Council met for its first session at Lake Success on March 26, 1947. Representatives were present from five powers administering trust territories (Australia, Belgium, France, New Zealand and United Kingdom) and four non-administering states (China, Iraq, Mexico, and the United States); the USSR, although automatically a member of the Council by virtue of her permanent membership on the Security Council, did not designate a representative and took no part in the activities of the Council.

scholarly journals National Identity and New Zealand’s Actions on the United Nations Security Council: 1993-94 and 2015-16

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kate Breach
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Security Council ◽  
The United States ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Material Interests ◽  
The United Nations

<p>To win its seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in both 1993-94 and 2015-16, New Zealand campaigned using the same prime pillar; its ability to act independently on the world’s prime authority for maintenance of international peace and security. With the substantial change in New Zealand’s international relationships between the two UNSC tenures, most particularly with the United States of America and China, many commentators have questioned whether New Zealand still acts independently in international affairs. Employing analytic eclecticism, this thesis applied a combined analytical framework to assess the drive behind New Zealand’s actions during both its 1993-94 and 2015-16 UNSC tenures, allowing both traditional international relations theories of neo-realism and neo-liberalism and the constructivist lens of national identity to be combined for greater explanatory power for the state’s actions in the contemporary era of complex international interdependencies. This research determined that most of New Zealand’s actions aligned with pursuit of its interests, as a small state, as ensured through multilateralism under the lens of institutional neo-liberalism. However, a number of actions taken, and strong positions held, by New Zealand on the UNSC in both periods did not align with the state’s pursuit of material interests under traditional international relations theories. By first establishing the popularly internalised national identity characteristics (or content) during each UNSC tenure period, defined as residing in public opinion, this thesis argues that a ‘win-set’ of national identity content relative prioritisation during each period enabled, and arguably drove, New Zealand’s political elite to take actions or hold positions not aligned with those of powerful states on which the small country’s material interests depended. It is argued that New Zealand’s actions on the UNSC in 2015-16 reinforced the social construction of New Zealand’s internationally regarded national identity content as an independent advocate for the global good, which was strongly established during its 1993-94 tenure.</p>

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