Maltese human rights expert John Pace honoured in Australia

A Maltese human rights expert and former UN senior official has been recognised in Australia’s King’s Birthday Honours List.

John Pace, a former secretary of the UN Commission on Human Rights, was recognised for his “distinguished service to international human rights and social justice, to diplomatic leadership and to law and policy education”.

Some 830 Australians were honoured in this year’s awards which recognise “distinguished and conspicuous service”, with recipients including former prime minister Scott Morrison and film director Baz Luhrmann.

Speaking to Times of Malta, Pace said he was “extremely happy and a little puzzled” at finding out he was being made an Officer of the Order of Australia, one of Australia’s highest honours.

“I always thought it was good for others to get,” he said of the commendation. “What I was doing was my duty... I just wanted to be as pragmatic and as quiet as possible and I never wanted to lecture others.”

Pace added that he suspected his book The United Nations Commission on Human Rights: ‘A Very Great Enterprise’, which was recently translated into Chinese and republished in November, most likely contributed to his recent commendation. 

The human rights expert noted that online events convened worldwide citing the book and his wider work on the topic in the last three years could have contributed to the award.

He explained he had been notified of the commendation by a letter from the Office of the Governor-General of Australia, the king’s representative in the country.

Pace became an Australian citizen in 2003, four years after emigrating to the country, but has since returned to Malta. His work in Australia was wide-ranging, covering legal and educational work including at Sydney’s University of New South Wales.

He continues to enjoy strong personal and professional ties with Australia, noting he still plays an "important role" with his academic and professional activities in the coutry.

I just wanted to be as pragmatic and as quiet as possible

In 2001, he travelled to the Republic of Nauru with Amnesty International to report on Australia’s now-abandoned ‘Pacific Solution’, which saw asylum seekers sent to the Pacific island state while their applications were processed.

The following year, he told the BBC that “rather than put a stop to people trafficking, it improved people smuggling”, likening the Australian navy’s role in the operation to becoming part of the trafficking supply chain.

Reflecting on the migrant relocation programme now, he said it was “not typical of the Australia I knew and loved” but noted he saw human rights grow as an area of study and legal practice during his time spent in the country.

Turning to his native Malta, Pace called for “much more serious reflection on human rights”, pointing to the handling of migrants and the “weakness of the judicial system” as areas requiring work.

The birthday honours list is a convention in some Commonwealth countries that marks the reigning of the serving monarch by awarding decorations or inducting recipients into dynastic orders.

The commendations awarded in Australia include Medal of the Order of Australia, Officer of the Order of Australia, Member of the Order of Australia, Commendation for Distinguished Service and Commendation for Distinguished Service.

In March, Pace warned that Malta’s use of a secretive immigration coordination centre in Libya would damage the country’s reputation and possibly lead to human rights violations.