The Globalisation of

Australia has ratified multiple international human rights instruments. However, in comparison to other common law jurisdictions, Australia is 'behind the times '. The fact is that Australia has not adopted a Biff of Rights and its human rights legislation is ad hoc. The legal protection that different human rights receive in Australia is contradictOly. The question ofwhether Australia should adopt a Bill of Rights and. if so, in what form and with what content is essentiaffy political. Nonetheless, the answer to the question needs to be iriformed by a greater awareness ofthe role andfill1ction ofhuman rights in Australia. In a speech at the opening of the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law in 2005, Professor Eric A Posner said that not a great deal of research had been undertaken on the effect of globalisation of national legal systems. He went on to say that: The et1ect of globalization is, in short, to decrease the autonomy of national legal systems. This is not entirely or even mainly due to the infiuence of supranational institutions. Indeed, outside of Europe supranational institutions remain weak an