Resumen de A culture of rights finding its feet: parliamentary human rights scrutiny in the Australian Capital Territory

Sean Mulcahy, Kate Seear

• In developing the Australian Capital Territory’s Human Rights Act 2004, the Billof Rights Consultative Committee argued that ‘its primary purpose should be toencourage the development of a human rights-respecting culture’. But whatdoes a ‘human rights-respecting culture’ look like? Commonly, a ‘culture ofhuman rights’ is defined as a pattern of assumptions, shared and taught, thathuman rights must be considered and respected. This overlooks the unstable,impermanent and changeable dimensions of culture, which is continuallyproduced and reproduced through various practices. Through a focus on theconsideration of human rights in the process of drafting and scrutinisinglegislation in the ACT, we argue that we need new ways of understandinghow cultures of human rights evolve and are maintained, including the waysin which shared meanings, values and beliefs are constantly changing andcan often be used to justify human rights infringements, particularly againstmarginalised populations.