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COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986

DECLARATION

I, MICHAEL JOHN DUFFY, Attorney-General, after consulting the appropriate Minister of each State, under subsection 47(1) of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986, declare that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 20 November 1989 (resolution 44/25), and ratified by Australia on 17 December 1990, is an international instrument relating to human rights and freedoms for the purposes of that Act.

Dated the 22nd day of October 1992.

Michael Duffy
Attorney-General

[NOTE:  This Declaration commences on the date on which a copy of each of the United Nations Convention, a copy of Australia's instrument of ratification of the United nations Convention, and this Declaration, are published in the Gazette or, if those copies are published in the gazette on different dates, on the later or latest of those dates; see paragraph 47 (2) (b) of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986.]

WHEREAS Australia signed the convention on the Rights of the Child, done at New York on 20 November 1989, on the twenty-second day of August, One thousand nine hundred and ninety; and

WHEREAS Australia may ratify the convention in accordance with Article 47; and

WHILE DECLARING that Australia accepts the general principles of Article 37 of the said Convention, in relation to the second sentence of paragraph (c), the obligation to separate children from adults in prison is accepted only to the extent that such imprisonment is considered by the responsible authorities to be feasible and consistent with the obligation that children be able to maintain contact with their families, having regard to the geography and demography of Australia:

THE GOVERNMENT OF AUSTRALIA, having considered the Convention, now hereby RATIFIES the same, for and on behalf of Australia, subject to the reservation to Article 37 (c) as set out above.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I GARETH JOHN EVANS, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Trade, have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal.

DONE at Canberra this seventeenth day of December one thousand nine hundred and ninety.

Gareth John Evans
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia
PREAMBLE

The States Parties to the present Convention,

Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Bearing in mind that the peoples of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith