To coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, today the federal Government will announce a process to introduce a legislative charter of rights. Lawyers will be smiling. They will profit the most from the inevitable rights litigation unleashed by a charter. Inevitable because a charter is deliberately drafted in such vague language that only litigation will determine the ambit of the rights.

Hence the Law Council of Australia and just about every law group across the nation have been at the forefront of pushing for a charter. 

Not just a charter of rights that duplicates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights but also the much more ambitious International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. More on that in a moment.

Not far behind the lawyers are equally delighted political judges who relish the chance of having greater power to call the shots about these rights. And third in the queue are the happy activists, finally able to secure their political agenda via the courts instead of having to battle with tiresome old democratic processes in parliament. Political because delineating the reach of so-called rights is, in essence, a political, not legal, issue.

Take a look at the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Its motherhood statements are meaningful only when we decide on the detail. But who gets to decide the exact meaning of “safe and healthy working conditions” or the “rest, leisure and reasonable limitation on working hours” as mandated in the covenant? We, the people, as part of the cut and thrust of democracy? Or a handful of unaccountable judges who think they know better than us?

The charter being proposed will allow judges to second-guess the decisions of elected politicians and only a brave politician will reject a judge’s determination once it is draped in the deceptive language of protecting a “human right”.

If you doubt that a charter of rights will involve a fundamental transfer of power to lawyers, judges and activists, ask yourself this. Would these champions of a charter be so energetically supporting a charter if it didn’t transfer power to them? Would High Court Justice Michael Kirby be eager for a charter if it did not boost judges’ ability to socially engineer a better society according to them? Likewise, the activists. Their glee is driven by the new power they will wield as they seek out like-minded judges only too willing to cement their political agendas into law.

Make no mistake. The push for a charter depends on a deceitful process aimed at duping the people. Academic and charter king George Williams, in his best comedy skit, says: “Any Australian who wants to should have a say.” Yet Williams has presided over so-called independent consultative committees that decided from the outset that Australia needed a charter. That is not consultation. That is the first step of the charter charade, where activists can do an end run around democracy.

But then lawyers and activists have never had much time for democracy, and nothing thrills them more than indulging their disdain for democratic processes while locating the next gravy train to fill their pockets.

Here’s the next bonanza. If you thought climate change was solely an issue for scientists, religious-minded green activists and governments, think again. The legal profession is busily working out how best to get its snout in this trough, too.

Late last month Stephen Hockman QC, a former chairman of the Bar Council in Britain, proposed an international court on the environment to mirror the International Court of Justice in The Hague. This new international court would enforce a “convention on the right to a healthy environment” and allow individuals and non-governmental organisations to protest against environmental injustices. “The time is now ripe to set this up and get it going,” Hockman said. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is considering it. Actor Judi Dench loves the idea. Well, that settles it.

Hockman is full of reform ideas. Last week he suggested that sharia law be written into English law. Perhaps we could intermix his innovative ideas. In the spirit of mutaween, the Arab world’s religious police who enforce sharia law, the new international carbon police - the greenween, perhaps - can impose a sharia solution to reducing the evil carbon footprint: cut off the feet of climate change sinners.

As tempting as it is to kid about Hockman’s reforms, he is no fringe dweller. The International Bar Association has also jumped on the global warming bandwagon as a new legal growth industry.

So, too, has barrister Peter King, the former member for Wentworth who now has some time on his hands. Addressing the NSW Bar Association last week, he encouraged lawyers to get more involved in a debate about rights in climate change law. Predictably, the activists love the idea of a new environmental human right enforced by an international court.

Like a charter of rights, international law has become the lawyers’ and activists’ version of Second Life, that weird cyber space game where you get to live out your grandest fantasies. International law allows them to operate in a parallel universe, unfettered by boring constraints of democracy and national sovereignty, dictating to nation-states how they should be governed. It’s done under the grand auspices of law. But it is really about power and influence of the worst kind. A group of globe-trotting, self-appointed guardians of morality get to hijack the domestic political agenda of nation-states.

Whether we are talking about a charter of rights or an international court to enforce some newly concocted right to a clean environment, the critical issue remains the same. Who should determine the ambit of these political issues so seductively couched as rights? One need only watch the Rudd Government grapple with climate change to realise this is a political, not a legal, issue.

Even a cursory look at the looming charter rights reveals these are unsettled political questions, not legal rights set in stone. If we are unhappy with how our Government responds to these issues, we can respond at the ballot box. That is the power of the people. But lawyers and activists prefer to vest power in a smaller group of people: themselves.