UN-led Universal Periodic Review highly critical of Australia's record on human rights and health for Indigenous Australians

Correspondence to Janani Muhunthan; jmuhunthan@georgeinstitute. org.au In November 2015, Australia completed its second Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a high level United Nations Human Rights Council (UN HRC)-led peer review conducted by UN Member States once every 4 years. The UPR is a bold innovation in international diplomacy as it is the only mechanism of its kind for scrutinising the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States. It can be seen as an exemplar for motivating global collective action in areas such as the achievement of development goals, development assistance, climate change targets and health. The process involves the submission of a national report by the country in question on its human rights record, separate reports submitted by UN-affiliated human rights experts, national human rights institutions and nongovernment stakeholders, and recommendations by UN Member States. Australia’s review comes at a crucial time. While defending its ‘long tradition of commitment to human rights’ against unprecedented international criticism for its treatment of asylum seekers, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (hereafter referred to as Indigenous) Australians, Australia also announced its campaign for a seat on the Human Rights Council from 2018. Australia generally ranks among the highest performing nations on most health and social indicators with the 10th highest per capita income in the world, a wellestablished universal health system and an average life expectancy of 80 and 84 years for males and females, respectively. 3 It is unsurprising therefore that the extreme health disparities that exist between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians have been called to attention by the international community. In particular, Indigenous incarceration, education, employment, constitutional recognition, self-determination and representation in decision-making have remained the focus of concern. Following its last review, 54 of all 145 recommendations made by UN Member States directly related to the plight of Indigenous Australians who are disproportionately affected by chronic disease and injury. Australia accepted 90% of all recommendations, however, only 10% of the recommendations have been fully implemented, and none of those entailed Indigenousspecific initiatives. Since the inception of the UPR process, justice issues have remained front and centre. Over only two cycles, justice issues were raised 3600 times and, subsequently, rank fourth out of the top five issues raised in UPRs globally. Australia’s latest UPR was no different. UN Members advised the Australian government that its commitment to justice had been seriously undermined not only because it had continued to defend (legitimately, according to a recent High Court decision) its detention of asylum Key questions