This Shadow Report is submitted to the Committee on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the context of the review of Australia’s compliance, as a State Party, with its obligations under the ICESCR.

The report is submitted by Development Alternatives with Women in a New Era (DAWN), a network of feminist researchers and activists from the Global South, dedicated to promoting economic, environmental, gender, and development justice, sustainable livelihoods, and democratic governance.

Since its formation in 1984, DAWN has produced critical feminist research and analysis; helped lead advocacy to secure global agreements on women’s rights at UN conferences; lobbied in other global policymaking fora; and mobilized and trained young feminists on global issues affecting women’s lives, livelihoods, human rights, and development prospects. DAWN challenges inequitable and repressive social, economic, and political systems, including authoritarianism and militarism, and offers alternative feminist visions.

Our submission primarily focuses on the trilateral security pact signed by Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, known as AUKUS, as well as subsequent bilateral security treaties that Australia has signed with Pacific Island governments. We do not seek to assess the legality of these security arrangements; rather, we focus on their implications for Australia’s compliance with its obligations under the Covenant—specifically its extraterritorial obligations (ETOs)—and the foreseeable and preventable impacts on the economic, social, and cultural rights of peoples in the Pacific.

We also draw attention to the implications of AUKUS for Australia’s compliance with other international legal instruments to which it is a State Party, namely the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—which Australia proclaims to be “a cornerstone of its foreign and defence policy”—and the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (SPNFZT), which obliges State Parties to actively prohibit the entry of nuclear weapons into the SPNF Zone.