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Public Interest Litigation and Human Rights Implementation: The Indian and Australian Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2015

Christine M. Forster  and
Vedna Jivan
Christine M. Forster
Affiliation:
University of New South Wales
Vedna Jivan
Affiliation:
University of Technology, Sydney
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Abstract

Public interest litigation [‘PIL’], typically defined as proceedings in which the public or the community at large has some pecuniary or legal interest, demonstrates an ability to foster human rights compliance. It does this by enabling broader community or ‘public’ interests to be recognised and enforced through the judicial process, thereby revealing greater potential than private rights litigation in addressing the systemic nature of many human rights violations. This in turn has presented greater opportunities domestically to monitor each state's accountability to international human rights standards.

This paper compares and contrasts the emergence and development of PIL in two jurisdictions - India and Australia. India was chosen for its remarkable and extensive development of PIL unparalleled in Commonwealth jurisdictions to date, and Australia, for its adoption of a much more restrained and traditional trajectory in line with other members of the Commonwealth. Although PIL has developed differently in the two countries, inevitably shaped by differences in culture, economic development, law and politics, both provide illustrations of PIL's potential (and limitations) in facilitating the development of human rights norms in domestic legal systems.

Keywords

public interest litigationhuman rights implementationIndiaAustraliacomparative
Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Comparative Law , Volume 3 , 2008 , pp. 1 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore 2008

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