Professor
Ernst Willheim
Honorary Professor
BA, LLB (Uni of Sydney) LLM (ANU)

Ernst Willheim is an Honorary Professor at the ANU Law School. Between 1967 and 1998 he worked for the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department where he headed several policy and professional Divisions, led Australian delegations to international conferences and appeared as counsel for the Commonwealth in the High Court and other appellate courts.

Since his ‘retirement’ he has pursued research and published in several public law areas including native title, racial discrimination administrative law, judicial accountability, constitutional law, international law and refugee law and has acted pro bono as counsel, including a successful complaint to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. He recently appeared as amicus curiae in the High Court challenge to the Northern Territory Emergency legislation.

  • Legal Representation before Administrative Tribunals (1969) 43 Australian Law Journal 64
  • UNEPs Expert Meeting on Liability and Compensation for Pollution Damage (1977) Environmental Policy and Law 109
  • Uranium:  A Notable Australian Decision (1978) Environmental Policy and Law 104.
  • A Legal Regime for Artificial Cyclone Modification (1980) Environmental Policy and Law 79
  • Legal Aspects of Environmental Regulation, published in Environmental Economics 1978
  • Cultural Problems in Treaty Negotiations:  A Case Study of the International Convention on the Conservation of Nature in the South Pacific, Apia, 1976, Published in Anand (Ed.), Cultural Factors in International Relations 1981
  • Private Remedies for Transfrontier Environmental Damage:  A Critique of OECDs Doctrine of Equal Rights of Access 7 Australian Yearbook of International law 174
  • Commentary on the Choice between Judicial and Administrative Tribunals and the Separation of Powers (1981) 12 Federal Law Review 62
  • Proposed Improvements in Commonwealth Parliamentary Control of Delegated Legislation (1981) 55 Australian Law Journal 713
  • Book Review, Torres Strait Treaty, edited by P.J. Boyce and M.W.D. White, in Australian Journal of Politics and History 1982
  • Case study on Implementation and Interpretation of International Arrangements at the National Level in Australia, published in Integration of Environment into Development:  Institutional and Legislative Aspects (ESCAP, 1985)
  • Admiralty Practice after Crawford, published in conference papers, Maritime Law Association of Australia and New Zealand, Fourteenth Annual Conference, 1987
  • Australia-Indonesia sea-bed boundary negotiations: proposals for a joint development zone in the ‘Timor Gap’ Maritime Studies (33) March-April 1987, 5-14
  • Australia - Indonesia Sea-Bed Boundary Negotiations:  Proposals for a Joint Development Zone in the "Timor Gap" (1989) 29 Natural Resources Journal 821 - 842
  • Ten Years of the ADJR Act:  From a Government Perspective (1990) 20 Federal Law Review 111-127
  • Rationalisation of Occupations and Markets - Implementing Mutual Recognition, the Commonwealth Perspective including the Adjudication Process (Royal Institute of Public Administration Australia, 1993)
  • Crown Immunity and Application of State Laws to the Commonwealth, Constitutional Law Forum,  (Attorney-General's Department) 19 August 1993, 39-53
  • Case note, Western Australia and Others v Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs (1994) Aboriginal Law Bulletin, vol 3, No 69, 17
  • Case note, Robinson v Australian Electoral Commission, (1994) Aboriginal Law Bulletin, vol 3, No 70, 13
  • Laws of Australia, entries under Constitution, s.51(vii), (viii), (xi), (xxi), (xxii)
  • Case Note, The Role of the Native Title Tribunal Registrar, Northern Territory v. Lane, Western Australia v. Lane, (1995) Aboriginal Law Bulletin Vol.3, No.76, 21
  • Case Note, Hindmarsh (Kumarangk Island, Norvill And Milera v Chapman and Others, Tickner v Chapman and Others (1996) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 24 - 28
  • Queensland Pastoral Leases and Native Title: The Wik Peoples v Queensland, (1997) Aboriginal Law Bulletin Vol. 3, No 89, 20
  • Legal issues in Implementation of the Reeves Report, in J.C. Altman, F. Morphy and T Rowse (eds), Land Rights at Risk? Evaluations of the Reeves Report (CAEPR, 1999)
  • The Reeves Report and Acquisition Issues, (1999) Indigenous Law Bulletin Vol 4, Issue 20, 12 - 15
  • Book Review, Jeffrey Goldsworthy, The Sovereignty of Parliament (Oxford, 1999) (2001) 29 F L Rev 115
  • Collective Responsibility, Oxford Companion to the High Court (2002) 109 - 110
  • Recollections of an Attorney-General’s Department Lawyer, (2001) 8 A J Admin L 151 - 162
  • Are Our Courts Truly Open? (2002) 13 Public Law Review 191 - 204
  • M V Tampa : The Australian Response (2003) 15 International Journal of Refugee Law 159-191
  • Government by Regulation : A case of Democratic Deficit? (http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au/).
  • Australia’s Racial Vilification Laws Found Wanting? The ‘Nigger Brown’ Saga: HREOC, the Federal Court, the High Court and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law, (2004) Vol. 4, No. 1, 86-129.
  • Government by Regulation: Deficiencies in Parliamentary Scrutiny, Public Law Review (2004) 15 PLR 5, 9-12
  • ‘Don’t bother knocking’ : Australia’s Response to Asylum Seekers, Prakash Shah (ed), The Challenge of Asylum to Legal Systems (London, Cavendish Publishing, 2005) 245-275.
  • Globalisation, State Sovereignty and Domestic Law: The Australian High Court Rejects International Law as a Proper Influence on Constitutional Interpretation, (2005) 6 Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law, 1-38.
  • Book Review, Stephen Hagan, The N Word: One Man’s Stand, (Magabala Books, 2005), Indigenous Law Bulletin, vol 6, issue 15, November 2005.
  • Review of Australian Public Law Developments' (2006) 30 Melbourne
  • University Law Review 269-295.
  • Australian Legal Procedures and the Protection of Secret Aboriginal Spiritual Beliefs: A Fundamental Conflict, in Peter Cane, Carolyn Evans and Zoe Robinson (editors), law and Religion in Theoretical and Historical Context (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
  • An Amicus Experience in the High Court: Wurridjal v Commonwealth (2009) 20 PLR 104.
  • A Federation in these Seas:An account of the Acquisition by Australia of its External Territiries (2010) 21 PLR 47.
  • The Mounting Legal Bills of an Ideological War, The Public Sector Informant, March 2010
  • Amici Curiae and Access to Constitutional Justice in the High Court of Australia, (2010) 22 Bond Law review 126
  • Human Rights, Non-Discrimination and the Role of Governments in Public Law Litigation, Right Now, Human Rights in Australia, 23 March 2012, http://rightnow.org.au/writing-cat/article/human-rights-non-discrimination-and-the-role-of-governments-in-public-law-litigation/
  • Book review,  Frank Bongiorno, Raelene Frances and Bruce Scates, ed., Labour and the Great War: The Australian Working Class and the Making of Anzac, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Special edition, Labour History, 106, May 2014 (www.HonestHistory.com.au)
  • Sex Spies and Lies? The Spurious Case against former Departmental Head John Burton, The Public Sector Informant, November 2013
  • Is David Horner’s Official History of ASIO ‘Honest History’? Was Colonel Spry a Traitor? , Honest History, 14 April 2015; Honesthistory.org.au; manningclark.org.au/category/events/.
  • The Legal Status of Aboriginal Spiritual Beliefs. (2014)  J Civil Legal Sci 3: 127. doi:10.4172/2169-0170.1000127 
  • Secret Trials: The illegal bugging of the Timor Leste Cabinet and the extraordinary prosecution of Bernard Collaery and Witness K, 1 February 2019, Pearls and Irritations, https://johnmenadue.com
  • Cover up of illegal activities, Manning Clark House, 27 February 2019, Pearls and Irritations, 11 June 2019, https://johnmenadue.com
  • The saga of Bernard Collaery and Witness K continues, 28 August 2019, Pearls and Irritations, https://johnmenadue.com
  • Secret Trials in the ACT Courts, 2 December 2019, Pearls and Irritations, https://johnmenadue.com
  • Juukan Gorge: an avoidable disaster that must never happen again, Pearls and Irritations, 20 November 2021, https://johnmenadue.com
  • Superficial coverage of Dutton’s nuclear policy does Australia a disservice, Pearls and Irritations, 17 June 2024,  https://johnmenadue.com
  • Aspects of Citizen Access to Court Archives, ch 2 in The Court as Archives (Ann Genovese, Trish Liker and Kim Rubenstein, eds ANU Press, 2019).
  • Australia Has failed to Protect the Religious Rights of its Indigenous People, in Claude Gelinas, Raphael Mathieu Lagault-Laberge and Sebastien Lebel-Grenier (editors), International Perspective on Indigenous Religious Rights (Brill/Nijhoff, Leiden, Boston,2024)

How my works connects with public policy

Submissions to Committees of the Australian Parliament

Ernst

Research themes

Administrative Law
Constitutional Law
International Human Rights Law
Australian Indigenous Rights
International Law
Law & Religion

Contacts

ernst.willheim@anu.edu.au
ANU College of Law, Bld 7, Fellows Rd, Acton ACT 2600