Human Rights in New Zealand: Emerging Faultlines

by Judy McGregor, Sylvia Bell, Margaret Wilson

Co-published with the New Zealand Law Foundation.

'The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted while the world remained deeply shocked by the atrocities committed during the Second World War, was an inspirational creation. ... It is hard to conceive of this document being adopted today. Like most other nations, New Zealand has succumbed to a kind of world-weary acceptance that full enjoyment of universal human rights remains a distant dream.' Preface, Dame Silvia Cartwright, PCNZM, DBE, QSO

New Zealand is proud of its human rights record with good reason. It was the first country in the world to give women the vote and it played a prominent part in the establishment of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New Zealand recently took a leading role in the creation of the world’s newest human rights treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. But just how good are things in practice? Are our governments living up to the promises they make when they ratify human rights treaties?

Human Rights in New Zealand is a comprehensive survey of the seven major international human rights treaties which New Zealand has signed and ratified, as well as the Universal Periodic Review. Based on four years of research, undertaken with the support of the New Zealand Law Foundation, this book concludes that significant faultlines are emerging in the human rights landscape. It sets out an agenda for change with recommendations for practical action.

400 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 22, 2016

Reviews

[Sinta · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read most of this book over summer during periods of inactivity when I was working in a law firm. I read it in preparation for Rights & Freedoms but it ended up not being very relevant to that class. It's very focussed on the mechanisms of international rights institutions as they apply in New Zealand. It reinforced that I love the theory much more than the practicality. I didn't finish it because I didn't feel I was getting much out of it in comparison to other books I was reading, and I finished my clerkship and no longer had to read something vaguely relevant to the job to stay up to the standards of presentee-ism. I only gave it such a low score because it wasn't very interesting - it was clearly thoroughly researched.

Stopped reading at Chapter 9 - Rights of People in Detention.