Life sentences given to two teenage boys convicted of the rape and murder of a Sydney woman is in breach of Australia's human rights obligations, the United Nations says.
Sentences imposed on children must allow for review and the prospect of release, the UN Human Rights Committee found in response to a complaint made by Bronson Blessington and Matthew Elliott.
The pair were respectively 14 and 16 when they were sentenced to life in prison, never to be released, for the murder of 20-year-old bank teller Janine Balding in 1988.
Legislative changes after Blessington and Elliott were convicted meant they would only be released if they were dying or incapacitated to the point they could not commit a crime.
The committee found that because the sentence allowed no genuine chance of release, even with full rehabilitation, it was in breach of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In its findings the committee said sentences imposed on children must allow for "the possibility of review and a prospect of release, notwithstanding the gravity of the crime and the circumstances around it".
"This does not mean that release should necessarily be granted," it found.
"It rather means that release should not be a mere theoretical possibility and that the review procedure should be a thorough one."
Human Rights Law Centre senior lawyer Ruth Barson said the question raised was about the legality of a system that does not allow for consideration of rehabilitation.
"No one is questioning the terrible nature of the crimes committed, but an effective and lawful response to children committing such crimes requires more than simply locking them up and throwing away the key," she said.
"We shouldn't just give up on children offenders, we need progress reviews built into a system - not retrospective laws that specifically prohibit them."
Ms Balding, 20, was abducted at knifepoint near Sydney's Sutherland train station in 1988 by a group including Blessington and Elliott.
She was repeatedly raped, bound and taken to a lake and drowned.
The Australian government has 180 days to respond.
