ACHLR Public Lecture – Right About Time: A New Convention on the Human Rights of Older Persons

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Group of older people in a park

On Thursday 29 May 2025, Bill Mitchell delivered a public lecture on the Human Rights of Older Persons. You can listen to the presentation* below:

*Apologies for the issues with the sound quality at the beginning of the recording. This was caused by an issue with the microphones at the venue. This issue was resolved from the 8min 48sec mark of the presentation. Thank you for your understanding.

Abstract

Title – Right About Time: A New Convention on the Human Rights of Older Persons

On 28th March 2025, the Human Rights Council resolved to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group with the mandate of elaborating and submitting to the Human Rights Council a draft international legally binding instrument on the human rights of older persons. This historic resolution followed decades of debate in various United Nations forums about whether older persons and the process of ageing need specific human rights protections, including a thematic convention. The lecture will provide a brief background on the journey from idea to the Human Rights Council’s resolution. Given the process of drafting will commence in 2026, the lecture looks to describe the procedural and geopolitical challenges in coming processes. The lecture will also note some of the key framing and drafting controversies likely to arise when we put pen to paper in 2026.

Bill Mitchell OAM HonLLD

Bill Mitchell

Bill Mitchell is Principal Solicitor at Townsville Community Law. Bill was admitted as a solicitor in 1992. He was made an Outstanding Alumni of JCU in 2012. JCU awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Laws in 2021, and he holds an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Law. He is an alumnus of QUT with a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice in 1992 and a Master of Laws in 2005. He was awarded the Australian Human Rights Commission Law Award in 2008, the Law Council of Australia’s President’s Medal in 2019 and a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2020.

Bill has more than thirty years of practice in diverse areas including human rights, refugee and immigration, disaster response and public law. His principal area of expertise is the human rights of older persons, and he has regularly appeared in and consulted for the United Nations on this issue for more than a decade.