Workshop on Advancing a United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Older Persons
Thank you for the warm invitation.
I begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we gather and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present. I recognise their continuing relationship to the land and waterways and respect that their connection and spiritual identity are maintained through long-held ceremonies, songlines, dance, art and living culture.
I also acknowledge the invaluable contribution Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have made to the preservation and continuance of their culture, the oldest living culture in the world.
As Australia’s first Special Envoy for International Human Rights, I have a particular advocacy role for the abolition of the death penalty, for the rights and protections of children, older persons, people living with a disability and LGBTIQ+ individuals – all issues on which Australia has a long record of international leadership.
The growing recognition of the rights of older persons raises two distinct and important human rights questions.
- Are our institutions, laws and policies responding adequately to the realities of ageing?
- Is adequate effect being given to the principle that older persons are rights holders, whose dignity, autonomy and equal worth do not depend on age, independence, capacity or economic contribution?
These questions asks whether our commitment to dignity and equality holds firm when the attributes modern societies so often value such as independence, productivity, status and capacity begin to change.
They ask whether dignity is protected when the body slows, when dependence may increase, and when society is tempted to mistake visibility for value.
A maturing human rights framework recognises that rights do not depend on capacity, that dignity does not diminish with age, and that the rights of older persons are central to the way those principles are understood and applied. It recognises that ageing requires law, policy and culture to think more deeply about interdependence, care and human dignity.
Many countries are finding this difficult however the principle is clear. Human dignity is inherent, and human rights are equal and inalienable. They do not depend on autonomy, productivity or capacity. Yet modern institutions have often been organised around different assumptions.
Ageing asks us to think more carefully about interdependence, care and human dignity. It also asks us to listen carefully to older persons, whose experience must shape how dignity, autonomy and equal worth are understood and protected.
Over more than three decades, the international community has work tirelessly to give practical expression to these principles. The Intergovernmental Working Group on the human rights of older persons is the latest step towards developing a binding international human rights instrument to protect older people.
Governments have not carried this work alone. Civil society organisations, associations of older persons, academic experts, advocacy networks and communities have helped bring the lived realities of older people into the international human rights system. Through United Nations reviews and consultations, they have insisted that older persons be recognised as rights holders and active participants in decisions that affect their lives.
Their experience, advocacy and participation have shaped the ambition for a United Nations Convention on the Rights of Older Persons now before the international community.
Their lives remind us that every life is shaped by memory, relationships, vulnerability and care. They also remind us that autonomy is not the absence of dependence. It is the right to retain voice, agency, dignity and rights across the whole course of life.
Greater recognition of those rights gives fuller effect to a fundamental human rights principle. Dignity and respect do not diminish with age or circumstance.
In closing, the work to strengthen the rights of older persons is consequential.
Australia approaches this work constructively. We support the process now underway, and we recognise both its significance and complexity.
Progress in human rights is built steadily, through cooperation and a willingness to listen to those whose experience gives the work its legitimacy. In the constrained multilateral environment we face today, that requires patience, careful diplomacy and sustained engagement. But that should not discourage us.
Australia will continue to engage respectfully and in good faith. I look forward to continuing that work.
