The constitutional system in Australia permits the Executive Government to commit Australia to international treaties. The ‘External Affairs’ power in the Constitution (section 51(xxix)) enables Parliament to enact legislation that may otherwise be outside its legislative power in relation to the obligations arising from the treaties. It is the Federal Government’s role to ratify international treaties, and to take responsibility for respecting, protecting, and fulfilling human rights. It is also the Federal Government’s role to report internationally on Australia’s human rights progress to Treaty Bodies and other UN mechanisms. Human rights responsibilities are voluntarily adopted by the Federal Government, and it is the Federal Government’s role to lead implementation of those responsibilities. Currently, the lack of legal implementation of core human rights treaties means that Australia is not fully realising its international obligations and, as Professor George Williams notes, it is behind all other democratic countries in this regard.10 The direct obligation to implement treaties at the federal level is a factor that has influenced the Commission’s approach to developing this Human Rights Act model, and it explains some of the key advances in the Commission’s model that depart from state and territory approaches. The Commission recommends that each right within the federal Human Rights Act should have a direct cause of action, and the associated range of judicial remedies. This means that breaches of human rights will enable individuals to bring a claim before the courts (and to make complaints to the Commission) without the need for a separate cause of action arising externally to the Human Rights Act. 108 This is similar to the approach taken by the ACT Human Rights Act, which also includes a direct cause of action for rights breaches. By contrast, Victoria and Queensland adopt a ‘piggybacking’ approach, requiring an additional nonHuman Rights Act cause of action, that falls short of international standards, and has caused unnecessary complications and confusion regarding the application of those laws.11 The Commission’s proposed approach to the federal Human Rights Act, implements Australia’s obligations in a straightforward manner with a less cumbersome enforcement mechanism. This approach reflects the right to an effective remedy as an essential element of the ICCPR.12 This is discussed in chapter 11. The Commission has also taken into account Australia’s obligations arising from ‘thematic’ treaties beyond ICESCR and the ICCPR. Key elements of these treaties have already been implemented federally through antidiscrimination laws, including the CERD via the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) and CEDAW via the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). However, discrimination laws only reflect a partial implementation of these thematic instruments. The Commission has therefore proposed embedding key principles from thematic instruments through the inclusion of a ‘participation duty’ and a related ‘equal access to justice duty’ on the Executive. The participation duty addresses a fundamental problem in the development of federal policies and decisions – inadequate engagement with the very people to whom those decisions directly apply. This duty embeds self-determination principles arising from UNDRIP, alongside overarching participation principles of the CRC and the CRPD. The participation duty as it relates to First