The latest annual human rights report by Amnesty International exposes many alarming trends, but also highlights the importance of organised resistance and the role of civil society as “the front line of defence of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.
Alison Barrett and Melissa Sweet write:
Civil society, in Australia and globally, must step up and resist the “reckless and punishing” forces that are undermining human rights and international law, according to a prominent human rights advocate.
“The world is at a historic juncture,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty in a report released this week.
“Unprecedented forces are hunting down the ideals of human rights for all, seeking to destroy an international system forged in the blood and grief of World War Two and its Holocaust.
“This religious, racial, patriarchal crusade, which aims for an economic order predicated on even greater inequality between and within states, imperils hard won equality, justice and dignity gains of these past 80 years.”
Callamard’s comments come in Amnesty International’s latest annual stocktake, The State of The World’s Human Rights, which also identifies numerous human rights breaches in Australia.
While assaults on human rights and international law have been the hallmark of the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency, the “Trump effect” has “turbocharged” harmful global trends already present, Callamard said.
“This is not merely about President Trump. The roots are far deeper. And, unless there is concerted and courageous resistance, this historic juncture will mutate into an historic transformation: not merely an era of change but a change of era.”
Over the past decade or more, Callamard said the world had witnessed a steady spread of authoritarian laws, policies and practices, shrinking civic space and the eroding of freedom of expression or association.
“Policy choices have deepened inequality, increased poverty and nourished billionaires,” she said.
“The COVID pandemic laid bare the greed, racism and selfishness of powerful states prepared to let millions die. And confronted with the climate crisis, states largely failed to live up to their promises made in Paris in 2015.”
Spotlight on Australia
While human rights have barely rated a mention during the Australian election campaign, the report identifies numerous areas of concern.
Discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples remained entrenched, it says, with actions by the Northern Territory and Queensland Governments singled out for particular concern.
The report also cites new migration laws that increased risks of indefinite detention or refoulement, and other human rights abuses in detention, while anti-protest laws were used to restrict the right to peaceful assembly.
The report criticises the Australian Government’s failure to implement most of the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations, with fears that this would negatively impact rights to housing, education and work for people with disabilities.
New fossil fuel projects were approved, perpetuating Australia’s status as a leading fossil fuel producer, while anti-protest laws were used against climate activists and those protesting against the war in Gaza.
“Students and activists advocating for Palestinian human rights faced arrests, police violence and harassment,” said the report.
“The University of Sydney introduced a policy requiring students to apply for permits to protest. At the University of Melbourne, CCTV footage and Wi-Fi location data were used as evidence in misconduct hearings against protesters.”
The report underscores concerns raised at a recent public meeting by Dr Sue Wareham, President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War Australia.
“A lot is at stake in the current election, and many of the things that hang in the balance are not the ones the current leaders are talking about,” Wareham told the meeting.
“Climate action and other environmental measures are critically important, as are economic justice for all people, saving our democracy from powerful vested interests, keeping nuclear power out of Australia, and many others.”
On Gaza, Wareham said that “if the moral implications alone of Israel’s actions and Australia’s complicity were not sufficiently important to be election campaign material, there are other reasons they should be”.
These include the importance of protecting international law, the global implication of Israel’s attacks on healthcare and concerns about normalising warfare.
“It doesn’t matter that Australia is not a central player in the Israel-Palestine war. As a close ally of Israel, Australia is an important player, and there are principles to uphold and to implement in our relationships with those that are the key players,” she said (read her powerful speech here.)
Dr Mohammed Mustafa, who has recently returned from a medical mission in Gaza, echoed these sentiments in an interview with The Guardian, calling for Australia to do more to help the people in Palestine.
“We don’t have to be a major player in the Middle East to feed children. We don’t have to be a major player in the Middle East to heal children, to help them,” he said.
Trauma “beyond imagination”
Since the end of the ceasefire on 18 March, nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli attacks, including children, women, journalists and humanitarians.
A two-month Israeli blockade has left Gazans facing a worsening humanitarian crisis, without food, medicine or aid, according to the United Nations. Since January 2025, approximately 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition among children have been identified and trauma-related medical supplies are running out.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said nearly 3,000 UNRWA trucks with lifesaving supplies are waiting outside Gaza.
“The humanitarian situation throughout the Gaza Strip has gone from bad … to worse … to beyond imagination,” Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, said this week.
Guterres called on Member States to use their leverage to “ensure that international law is respected, and impunity does not prevail”.
Amnesty’s new report details genocide in Gaza by Israel and its allies, and Russia’s systematic attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, where it killed more civilians than in 2023.
In 2024, thousands of Sudanese deaths from conflict and hunger, in the midst of the largest forced displacement crisis in the world, were met with near-complete global indifference as was the lethal escalating violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Niger and Myanmar, the report said.
“2024 demonstrated states’ willingness to deploy propaganda to the service of armed conflicts, amplified by social media algorithms and powerful voices, and without regard to accuracy or hate-ridden consequences,” said the report.
Cause for hope
However, the report also highlighted other, more hopeful developments. South Africa’s International Court of Justice case against Israel for allegedly breaching the Genocide Convention was a crucial step towards justice, it said.
The International Criminal Court issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military chief Mohammed Al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity was “a historic breakthrough”, said the report.
It noted that in 2024, the “year of elections”, the 64 votes that took place across the world in “did not result in a victory lap for anti-human rights forces”.
“Around the world, a large number of citizens voted for a different path, demonstrating that the rise of authoritarian practices is not inevitable, that it can be resisted.”
Organised resistance is vital, and “community organisers and human rights defenders are standing up…
“They are showing once again that civil society is the front line of defence of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
See Croakey’s archive of articles on human rights.
