Australian Human Rights Commission Submission to UN Committee Against Torture, 17 October 2014 19. It is practice in Australia that new treaty obligations are not entered into prior to a National Interest Analysis being conducted and reviewed by the JSCOT of the federal Parliament. 20. In 2012, the JSCOT Committee recommended that the government ratify the OPCAT. 21. However, there has been limited progress towards this since 2012: 22. • Section 14(1)(e) of the Human Rights Commission Act 2005 (ACT) in the Australian Capital Territory provides the Australian Capital Territory Human Rights Commission with powers of inspection and own-motion reviews.11 These powers have been used to develop reports on conditions of detention and health provision to detainees in the ACT. • The Northern Territory government introduced the Monitoring of Places of Detention (Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture) (National Uniform Legislation) Bill 2013 to Parliament on 22 August 2013. However the Bill has not been enacted to date. • The Australian Government released the country’s third National Human Rights Action Plan on 10 December 2012. The Plan indicates that the government would work with states and territories to move towards ratifying the OPCAT. This commitment was also made at the first review of Australia at the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review in 2011. • However, the Commission is unaware of any action having been taken by the Standing Council on Law and Justice regarding efforts to encourage ratification of the OPCAT or the development of a National Preventive Mechanism since these commitments were made. The Commission has called for the Australian Government to expedite ratification of the OPCAT on a number of occasions, most recently in the Children’s Rights Report 2013 to federal Parliament and in our annual UPR Implementation Progress Report for 2013.12 8