5 A human rights-based approach to native title reform Text Box 5.1: PANEL PRINCIPLES: A human rights‑based approach11 Participation: everyone has the right to participate in decisions which affect their human rights. Participation must be active, free and meaningful, and give attention to issues of accessibility, including access to information in a form and a language which can be understood. Accountability: accountability requires effective monitoring of compliance with human rights standards and achievement of human rights goals, as well as effective remedies for human rights breaches. For accountability to be effective, there must be appropriate laws, policies, institutions, administrative procedures and mechanisms of redress in order to secure human rights. This also requires the development and use of appropriate human rights indicators. Non‑discrimination and equality: a human rights‑based approach means that all forms of discrimination in the realisation of rights must be prohibited, prevented and eliminated. It also means that priority should be given to people in the most marginalised or vulnerable situations who face the biggest barriers to realising their rights. Empowerment: everyone is entitled to claim and exercise their rights and freedoms. Individuals and communities need to be able to understand their rights, and to participate fully in the development of policy and practices which affect their lives. Legality: a human rights‑based approach requires that the law recognises human rights and freedoms as legally enforceable entitlements, and the law itself is consistent with human rights principles. As the Social Justice and Native Title Report 2015 noted: ‘To be consistent with these [human rights] principles, laws and policies should be non-discriminatory and promote the ability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to exercise choice, participation and control.’12 The complicating factor in seeing the extensive and multi‑faceted discrimination in the native title system is that native title can only be claimed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Negative impacts of the system are felt only by us. The only people who are deprived of control over our ‘assets’ and our culture through the native title system are First Nations individuals and peoples. This perhaps makes it hard for ‘outsiders’, such as policy and law makers, to see how significantly the native title system undermines our enjoyment of the human rights which other Australians take for granted and the barriers that it has created for us, despite the stated intent to benefit us.13 Australian Human Rights Commission 19