Publications
This is a searchable catalogue of the College's most recent books, book chapters, journal articles and working papers. The ANU College of Law also publishes a Research Paper Series on SSRN.

The Boundary between 'Not-for-Profits' and Government
Author(s): Darryn Jensen
This chapter attempts to trace the development of a concept of voluntariness. This cannot be done by reference to a category of 'not-for-profit', for that category is a recent invention. Instead, the history of voluntariness is to be found in the history of two other concepts which might be seen to be distinguishable from government - charity and civil society. These concepts are neither wholly distinct from, nor coterminous with, 'not-for-profit'. Once the histories of these concepts have been considered, the normative determinacy of the concept of voluntariness will be considered in the light of some contemporary intersections of government and not-for-profit activity.
Centre: CCL
Research theme: Legal Theory, Private Law

Constructive Trusteeship: The Perils of Statutory Formulae
Author(s): Darryn Jensen
This paper evaluates the provisions concerning constructive trusteeship in Trusts Act 1994 (Marshall Islands) and makes more general observations about the roles of constructive trusts in litigation involving trustees' breaches of duty, the roles of statute law and the risk inherent in attempts to express complex and multi-faceted private law concepts in statutory formulae.
Centre: CCL
Research theme: Legal Theory, Private Law

Being Well in the Law: A Guide for Lawyers
Author(s): Tony Foley, Vivien Holmes, Colin James
Being Well in the Law is a toolkit for lawyers. It has been well informed by the input of experts from the Australian National University and Sydney University, as well as a range of other experts. It draws heavily on multidisciplinary knowledge embracing mindfulness and meditation, and evokes ideas to help us switch off from other thoughts and focus only on the moment, helping to alleviate anxiety.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Criminal Law, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Legal Education, Regulatory Law and Policy

Lawyers in the Shadow of the Regulatory State: Transnational Governance on Business and Human Rights
Author(s):
This paper examines the growth of transnational governance, and what it means for business lawyers advising multinational corporate clients. The term “governance” incorporates the network of actors, instruments and mechanisms that now govern transnational corporations, separate from the nation state. It is reasonable to expect that lawyers play an important role in advising business clients on how to effectively operate within this system. Indeed, many transnational legal instruments are intended to enhance clients’ business goals by enabling them to engage more efficiently in cross-border commerce. Other forms of regulation, such as human rights regulation, purports to impose requirements on companies that go beyond what is necessary to enhance cross-border commerce.
In this paper we discuss the transnational governance regime that has arisen to address the adverse human rights impacts of business activities. We focus in particular on the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which were adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011. We ask what if any role is there for lawyers in fostering acknowledgment and fulfilment of these responsibilities among clients? Is the duty to respect human rights a “legal” obligation in any sense? If a lawyer does provide advice, should it encompass only legal risks to the company that fall within the lawyer’s traditionally defined specialized expertise? Or should it go beyond that to include other concerns?
Research theme: Legal Education, Private Law, Regulatory Law and Policy

Lessons Lost in Sentencing: Welding Individualised Justice to Indigenous Justice
Author(s): Anthony Hopkins
Indigenous offenders are heavily over-represented in the Australian and Canadian criminal justice systems. In the case of R v Gladue, the Supreme Court of Canada held that sentencing judges are to recognise the adverse systemic and background factors that many Aboriginal Canadians face and consider all reasonable alternatives to imprisonment in light of this. In R v Ipeelee, the Court reiterated the need to fully acknowledge the oppressive environment faced by Aboriginal Canadians throughout their lives and the importance of sentencing courts applying appropriate sentencing options. In 2013, the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in Bugmy v The Queen. The Court affirmed that deprivation is a relevant consideration and worthy of mitigation in sentencing. However, the Court refused to accept that judicial notice should be taken of the systemic background of deprivation of many Indigenous offenders. The High Court also fell short of applying the Canadian principle that sentencing should promote restorative sentences for Indigenous offenders, given this oft-present deprivation and their over-representation in prison. In this article, we argue that Bugmy v The Queen represents a missed opportunity by the High Court to grapple with the complex interrelationship between individualised justice and Indigenous circumstances in the sentencing of Indigenous offenders.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Criminal Law, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Gender, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education

What Can We Legitimately Expect from the State?
Author(s): Greg Weeks
The recognition and enforcement of legitimate expectations by courts has been a striking feature of English law since R v North and East Devon Health Authority; ex parte Coughlan [2001] 3 QB 213. Although the substantive form of legitimate expectation adopted in Coughlan was quickly accepted by English courts and received a generally favourable response from public law scholars, the doctrine of that case has largely been rejected in other common law jurisdictions. The central principles of Coughlan have been rejected by courts in common law jurisdictions outside the UK for a range of reasons, such as incompatibility with local constitutional doctrine, or because they mark an undesirable drift towards merits review. The skeptical and critical reception to Coughlan outside England is a striking contrast to the reception the case received within the UK. This issue warrants the detailed scholarly analysis that it receives in this forthcoming book to be published by Hart.
This chapter considers the promises public authorities make to individuals and how they are received. It examines both the capacity of government to create expectations and the legitimacy of people entertaining firm expectations of government and considers the substantive enforcement of legitimate expectations, when government might be estopped from resiling from its representations and in what circumstances government may be liable for making negligent misrepresentations.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Administrative Law

The ‘Chaudhry Court’: Deconstructing the ‘Judicialization of Politics’ in Pakistan
Author(s): Moeen Cheema
The Supreme Court of Pakistan underwent a remarkable transformation in its institutional role and constitutional position during the tenure of the former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iflikhar Muhammad Chaudhry (2005-2013). This era in Pakistan's judicial history was also marked by great controversy as the court faced charges that it had engaged in "judicial activism," acted politically, and violated the constitutionally mandated separation of powers between institutions of the state. This article presents an in-depth analysis of the judicial review actions of the Chaudhry Court and argues that the charge of judicial activism is theoretically unsound and analytically obfuscating. The notion of judicial activism is premised on the existence of artificial distinctions between law, politics and policy and fails to provide a framework for adequately analyzing or evaluating the kind of judicial politics Pakistan has recently experienced. The Supreme Court's role, like that of any apex court with constitutional and administrative law jurisdiction, has always been deeply and structurally political and will continue to be so in the future. As such, this article focuses on the nature and consequences of the Chaudhry Court's judicial politics rather than addressing the issue of whether it indulged in politics at all. It analyzes the underlying causes that enabled the court to exercise an expanded judicial function and in doing so engages with the literature on the "judicialization of politics" around the world.
Research theme: Constitutional Law and Theory, Law, Governance and Development, Legal Theory

Rights, Religious Pluralism and the Recognition of Difference: Off the scales of justice
Author(s):
Human rights and their principles of interpretation are the leading legal paradigms of our time. Freedom of religion occupies a pivotal position in rights discourses, and the principles supporting its interpretation receive increasing attention from courts and legislative bodies. This book critically evaluates religious pluralism as an emerging legal principle arising from attempts to define the boundaries of freedom of religion. It examines religious pluralism as an underlying aspect of different human rights regimes and constitutional traditions.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Law and Religion

The Law of Deliberative Democracy
Author(s): Ron Levy, Graeme Orr,
Laws have colonised most of the corners of political practice, and now substantially determine the process and even the product of democracy. Yet analysis of these laws of politics has been hobbled by a limited set of theories about politics. Largely absent is the perspective of deliberative democracy – a rising theme in political studies that seeks a more rational, cooperative, informed, and truly democratic politics. Legal and political scholarship often view each other in reductive terms. This book breaks through such caricatures to provide the first full-length examination of whether and how the law of politics can match deliberative democratic ideals.
Centre: DGAL
Research theme: Legal Theory, Regulatory Law and Policy

Being Well in the Law
Author(s): Tony Foley, Vivien Holmes, Colin James, Ian Hickey
When it comes to wellbeing, NSW Young Lawyers, the Australian National University and the Law Society of New South Wales are keen to lead. Being Well in the Law is a toolkit for lawyers. It draws on expert and multidisciplinary knowledge about the breadth of mental health problems and offers ideas to help everybody, young and old, deal with depression, anxiety and stress and learn to better manage the business and pressures of work and life. We all share a responsibility to continue the conversation about mental health. In the legal profession this is especially important as lawyers have a heightened pre disposition to depression and mental illness.
This small but important book, with its varied suggestions and personal stories from people who have been touched by mental illness, is a solid first step towards a happier and healthier world.
View the guide online, order a free copy online, or pick up a free copy in person
Centre:
Research theme: Legal Education

Australian Citizenship Law 2e
Author(s): Kim Rubenstein
Citizenship is the pivotal legal status in any nation-state. In Australia, the democratic, social and political framework, and its identity as a nation, is shaped by the notion of citizenship. Australian Citizenship Law sheds light on citizenship law and practice and provides the most up-to-date analysis available of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth).
Rubenstein’s Australian Citizenship Law is the much-awaited second edition to her highly acclaimed text. It has been cited in High Court decisions, referred to in national and international academic work and used extensively by practitioners working in citizenship law, migration law, constitutional and administrative law and is an essential resource for migration agents.
Moreover, because of its broader analysis, it is crucially relevant to any discipline associated with citizenship, including, history, politics, education or sociology, and to government officials working in the area of citizenship, especially those working in our embassies and consulates.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Constitutional Law and Theory, Human Rights Law and Policy, International Law

Australia’s Constitutional Government
Author(s): , Jack Richardson
This book comprehensively describes Australia’s unique pattern of constitutional government. Jack Richardson was always convinced that the legal basis of federal government and the evolving patterns of power should be understandable — not just to experts in constitutional law, but to people in all walks of life. He believed that knowledge of the principles by which we are governed must be available to the general public, and to participants in the federal system. The author advances expert knowledge by divining those principles. By describing their operation in words intelligible to readers who are not legally qualified, he achieves his aim of acquainting a much wider range of people with the powers that rule them.
The result is a book that will be a great help to students and scholars of law, government, politics and history, as well as a useful guide for administrators, journalists, politicians and legal practitioners. Anyone who needs a straightforward explanation of an element of constitutional government will value the understanding they can easily get from the book.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Constitutional Law and Theory

Hanks Australian Constitutional Law Materials and Commentary, 10th Edition
Author(s): James Stellios, D Meagher
This book considers the concepts underlying our Constitution and explores constitutional decision-making in context. It reviews all of the important constitutional decisions of the High Court of Australia, and exposes the issues that arise in those decisions to a critical analysis. The book covers all major areas of study in both constitutional law and public law.
Updates for this edition include the two Williams cases in which the High Court reworked the executive power of the Commonwealth to contract and spend; recent cases developing the Kable principles and considering the validity of State laws against Chapter III implications; important recent cases on the implied freedom of political communication; recent cases on s 92 of the Constitution dealing with internet trade and commerce.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Constitutional Law and Theory

Did Defensive Homicide in Victoria Provide a Safety Net for Battered Women Who Kill? A Case Study Analysis
Author(s): Anthony Hopkins
This article seeks to draw conclusions about the potential impact of the Crimes Amendment (Abolition of Defensive Homicide) Act 2014 (Vic). We do so by considering whether defensive homicide served as a safety net in the 2014 case of Director of Public Prosecutions (Vic) v Williams. The article presents a detailed analysis of the trial transcript and sentencing remarks to support the contention that the defence did in fact achieve this purpose. The conclusion rests, principally, upon understanding the jury finding that Williams killed in the belief that her actions were necessary for her own protection, but apparently determined that she had no reasonable grounds for that belief (thereby failing the legal test of self-defence as it then stood). Having looked at how the 2014 legislation also amended relevant evidence laws, and reinforced jury directions to accommodate considerations of family violence, we then consider the implications of these reforms for battered women who kill. We suggest that, in the absence of the offence of defensive homicide, women like Williams may in the future be convicted of murder, even when they kill in response to family violence and with a genuine belief that their actions are necessary in self-defence.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Criminal Law, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Gender, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education

The Politics of the Rule of Law
Author(s): Moeen Cheema
In March 2009, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and several other deposed judges were restored to the Supreme Court of Pakistan as a result of a populist movement for the restoration of an independent judiciary. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has since engaged in judicial activism that has resulted in a clash between the judiciary and the elected executive and has brought the distinction between the Rule of Law and the judicialization of politics into contestation. This Paper deconstructs the philosophical debates over the meaning and relevance of the Rule of Law in order to show that the claims to universal applicability, neutrality and inherent value implicit in the dominant modes of theorizing about the Rule of Law are hollow. The deeper concern animating these debates is not the desire to draw hard lines between “law” and “politics.” However, abstract Rule of Law contestations have limited value and relevance, when divorced from the political, constitutional, and sociological context. Only a sharper understanding of the nature of the special politics of law and the specific contexts (of constitutional law, state structure, social, and economic life- forms) shall enable a better understanding of the ever-increasing resonance of the Rule of Law, especially in the Global South.
Research theme: Constitutional Law and Theory, Law, Governance and Development, Legal Theory

Law Student Wellbeing: A Neoliberal Conundrum
Author(s): Margaret Thornton
The discourse around student wellness is a marked feature of the 21st century Australian legal academy. It has resulted in various initiatives on the part of law schools, including the development of a national forum. The phenomenon relates to psychological distress experienced by students ascertained through surveys they themselves have completed. Proposed remedies tend to focus on improving the law school pedagogical experience. This article argues that the neoliberalisation of higher education is invariably overlooked in the literature as a primary cause of stress, even though it is responsible for the high fees, large classes and an increasingly competitive job market. The ratcheting up of fees places pressure on students to vie with one another for highly remunerated employment in the corporate world. In this way, law graduates productively serve the new knowledge economy and the individualisation of their psychological distress effectively deflects attention away from the neoliberal agenda.
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Law and Gender, Legal Education

The ‘Chaudhry Court’: Deconstructing the ‘Judicialization of Politics’ in Pakistan
Author(s): Moeen Cheema
The Supreme Court of Pakistan underwent a remarkable transformation in its institutional role and constitutional position during the tenure of the former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iflikhar Muhammad Chaudhry (2005-2013). This era in Pakistan's judicial history was also marked by great controversy as the court faced charges that it had engaged in "judicial activism," acted politically, and violated the constitutionally mandated separation of powers between institutions of the state. This article presents an in-depth analysis of the judicial review actions of the Chaudhry Court and argues that the charge of judicial activism is theoretically unsound and analytically obfuscating. The notion of judicial activism is premised on the existence of artificial distinctions between law, politics and policy and fails to provide a framework for adequately analyzing or evaluating the kind of judicial politics Pakistan has recently experienced. The Supreme Court's role, like that of any apex court with constitutional and administrative law jurisdiction, has always been deeply and structurally political and will continue to be so in the future. As such, this article focuses on the nature and consequences of the Chaudhry Court's judicial politics rather than addressing the issue of whether it indulged in politics at all. It analyzes the underlying causes that enabled the court to exercise an expanded judicial function and in doing so engages with the literature on the "judicialization of politics" around the world.
Research theme: Constitutional Law and Theory, Law, Governance and Development, Legal Theory

Coherence in the Age of Statutes
Author(s): Darryn Jensen
The High Court of Australia, in pursuing coherence between common law and statute law, has limited itself to ensuring that the rules of common law and statute law should be free of contradiction. The Court does not appear to have embraced the idea, which lies at the core of some major theories of private law, that a set of rules is coherent only if the set can be explained as the outworking of a single principle. Applying that idea to the relationship between common law and statute law is confronted by some serious challenges. In the past, coherence as non-contradiction (combined with the idea of parliamentary supremacy) has worked well as a means of reconciling common law with statute law, but the proliferation of legislation in recent years and the character of much modern legislation has drawn attention to the limitations of such an approach to the question. A more exacting approach to coherence of common law and statute law, on the other hand, would require the revision of some widely-held assumptions about the nature of law, such as the core assumption of legal positivism that the ultimate criterion of the authority of the law is its pronouncement by an authoritative institution.
Centre: CCL
Research theme: Legal Theory, Private Law

Squeezing the Life Out of Lawyers: Legal Practice in the Market Embrace
Author(s): Margaret Thornton
Neoliberalism is the dominant ideology of our time and shows no sign of abating. The undue deference accorded the economy and capital accumulation means that comparatively little attention is paid to the pressures this involves for workers. Although conventionally viewed as privileged professionals, lawyers in corporate law firms have been profoundly affected by the neoliberal turn as firms have expanded from local to national, to global entities, with the aim of maximising profits and making themselves competitive on the world stage. Although corporate clients may be located in a different hemisphere they still expect 24/7 availability of lawyers in contrast to what they normally expect of other professionals, such as accountants. A corollary of global competition is the ratcheting up of billable hours, which has engendered stress and depression. The pressure for firms to be more productive has resulted in increased levels of incivility, including bullying. Despite a plethora of reports attesting to the deleterious effects of stress, scant attention is paid to the neoliberalisation of legal practice. This article argues that the tendency to individualise and pathologise the adverse effects of stress and uncivil behaviours deflects attention away from the political factors that animate them.
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Law and Gender, Legal Education