This article provides a detailed examination of how the safety and cost-effectiveness elements of Australia's drug regulatory system will respond to nanomedicines. The case study investigated involves Abraxane, a newly developed anti-cancer agent. The article concludes by proposing some responses to the challenges which nanomedicines are likely to present to international and domestic agencies. Additionally, it considers whether the recommendation of the Australian Productivity Commission to allow parallel submissions to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is appropriate when applied to new nanotherapeutics.

In Hunter and New England Area Health Service v. A [2009] NSWSC 761; Brightwater Care Group (Inc) v. Rossiter [2009] WASC 229; and Australian Capital Territory v. JT [2009] ACTSC 105 Australian courts have recently considered the circumstances in which technically futile treatment may be withdrawn from patients at their direct or indirect request or purportedly in their best interests. The cases provide many valuable lessons about how norms of ethics, law and international human rights shape the regulatory framework of this area of healthcare in Australia.

This paper critically analyses existing WTO Dispute Settlement rules and experience to raise awareness amongst industry, government and relevant trade law practitioners of the value in developing expertise about initiating and defending non-violation nullification of benefits (“NVNB”) claims and proceedings. NVNB claims directly arise in a WTO setting under Article 26 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (“DSU”), Article XXIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (“GATT1994”), Article XXIII of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (“GATS”) and Article 64 of the Trade-Related Intellectual Property agreement (“TRIPS”).

NVNB claims represent one of the potentially most valuable, yet also potentially threatening, areas of WTO Dispute Settlement jurisprudence for the Commonwealth government, for Australian exporters and other companies whose competitive position may be affected by the trade restrictive actions of foreign governments. Under NVNB provisions, the full range of dispute resolution mechanisms may be invoked, whether or not a breach of any specific trade rule is alleged, provided a “reasonably expected” “benefit” accruing under the relevant trade agreement, has been “nullified or impaired” by a “measure” applied by a WTO member.

We will examine the contentious tactical role of the WTO DSU NVNB claims and proceedings in converting the ‘constructive textual ambiguities’ of strongly contended trade agreement provisions, into binding rules. We shall also consider the steps that need to be taken to prepare to initiate such claims and to defend against them.

This Chapter begins by outlining the origins and place of NVNB provisions in the DSU, GATT, GATS and TRIPS. It then discuses the relevant WTO NVNB jurisprudence and considers some opportunities and dilemmas presented by such claims in the context of the WTO DSU and Australia’s long term pubic policy objectives. It concludes by offering some options for strategically utilising NVNB claims and defences.

This paper critically analyses existing WTO Dispute Settlement rules and experience to raise awareness amongst industry, government and relevant trade law practitioners of the value in developing expertise about initiating and defending non-violation nullification of benefits (“NVNB”) claims and proceedings. NVNB claims directly arise in a WTO setting under Article 26 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (“DSU”), Article XXIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (“GATT1994”), Article XXIII of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (“GATS”) and Article 64 of the Trade-Related Intellectual Property agreement (“TRIPS”).

NVNB claims represent one of the potentially most valuable, yet also potentially threatening, areas of WTO Dispute Settlement jurisprudence for the Commonwealth government, for Australian exporters and other companies whose competitive position may be affected by the trade restrictive actions of foreign governments. Under NVNB provisions, the full range of dispute resolution mechanisms may be invoked, whether or not a breach of any specific trade rule is alleged, provided a “reasonably expected” “benefit” accruing under the relevant trade agreement, has been “nullified or impaired” by a “measure” applied by a WTO member.

We will examine the contentious tactical role of the WTO DSU NVNB claims and proceedings in converting the ‘constructive textual ambiguities’ of strongly contended trade agreement provisions, into binding rules. We shall also consider the steps that need to be taken to prepare to initiate such claims and to defend against them.

This Chapter begins by outlining the origins and place of NVNB provisions in the DSU, GATT, GATS and TRIPS. It then discuses the relevant WTO NVNB jurisprudence and considers some opportunities and dilemmas presented by such claims in the context of the WTO DSU and Australia’s long term pubic policy objectives. It concludes by offering some options for strategically utilising NVNB claims and defences.

This paper critically analyses existing WTO Dispute Settlement rules and experience to raise awareness amongst industry, government and relevant trade law practitioners of the value in developing expertise about initiating and defending non-violation nullification of benefits (“NVNB”) claims and proceedings. NVNB claims directly arise in a WTO setting under Article 26 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (“DSU”), Article XXIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (“GATT1994”), Article XXIII of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (“GATS”) and Article 64 of the Trade-Related Intellectual Property agreement (“TRIPS”).

NVNB claims represent one of the potentially most valuable, yet also potentially threatening, areas of WTO Dispute Settlement jurisprudence for the Commonwealth government, for Australian exporters and other companies whose competitive position may be affected by the trade restrictive actions of foreign governments. Under NVNB provisions, the full range of dispute resolution mechanisms may be invoked, whether or not a breach of any specific trade rule is alleged, provided a “reasonably expected” “benefit” accruing under the relevant trade agreement, has been “nullified or impaired” by a “measure” applied by a WTO member.

We will examine the contentious tactical role of the WTO DSU NVNB claims and proceedings in converting the ‘constructive textual ambiguities’ of strongly contended trade agreement provisions, into binding rules. We shall also consider the steps that need to be taken to prepare to initiate such claims and to defend against them.

This Chapter begins by outlining the origins and place of NVNB provisions in the DSU, GATT, GATS and TRIPS. It then discuses the relevant WTO NVNB jurisprudence and considers some opportunities and dilemmas presented by such claims in the context of the WTO DSU and Australia’s long term pubic policy objectives. It concludes by offering some options for strategically utilising NVNB claims and defences.

In Hunter and New England Area Health Service v. A [2009] NSWSC 761; Brightwater Care Group (Inc) v. Rossiter [2009] WASC 229; and Australian Capital Territory v. JT [2009] ACTSC 105 Australian courts have recently considered the circumstances in which technically futile treatment may be withdrawn from patients at their direct or indirect request or purportedly in their best interests. The cases provide many valuable lessons about how norms of ethics, law and international human rights shape the regulatory framework of this area of healthcare in Australia.

Recent research in Australia has suggested that law students are four times more likely than students in other degrees to suffer from anxiety and depression. The Brain and Mind Research Institute’s (BMRI) 2008 survey of lawyers and law students found that over 35% of the law students studied suffered from high to very high levels of psychological distress, and that almost 40% reported distress severe enough to warrant clinical or medical intervention. This contrasted with just over 17% of medical students and 13% of the general population. Similarly, a significant portion of the lawyers surveyed were found to suffer from elevated levels of anxiety and depression, with 31% falling in the high to very high levels of psychological distress.

With research on student well-being now becoming available in Australia, this article takes up the point of how Australian law schools will respond to these findings. It suggests that even before we start to consider the question of what we should do about the problem of student well-being, we must recognize that there are common psychological processes which can undermine our response to these issues. In particular, research in cognitive dissonance and rationalization suggest that even as we become aware of negative information on law student distress, we can unconsciously ignore it or rationalize it away on the basis that it is not relevant to us. Furthermore, these same cognitive processes can affect our students, such that they can fail to appreciate the significant implications of this research for them.

A comparison between the judicial reasoning adopted by the House of Lords in Belmarsh and Torture Evidence cases, and the High Court of Australia's administrative detention cases (especially Al-Kateb) reveals stark differences in the approach to common law rights, judicial reasoning, and constitutional rhetoric. Using the language of historically-based identity-informing constitutional values, their Lordships' speeches can be seen as exercises in public and political persuasion, made within the idiom of constitutional veneration which is enjoying a renaissance in the UK. This emerging judicial rhetoric combines an appeal to a mythologised constitutional past with an emphasis on the quintessentially 'British' nature of the rights at stake to consolidate both the constitutional status of the 'principle of legality' and an inclusive notion of 'equality'. By contrast, the High Court's majority decisions are virtually devoid of the language of values, and are silent on the nature or status of the rights which Parliament was impliedly abrogating. The decisions are instead shrouded in the equally powerful rhetoric of strict legalism. Behind this purportedly valueless methodology, however, their Honours' decisions reveal attitudes towards aliens as 'illegal,' 'unlawful' and 'unwanted' rather than rights-bearers, and a judicial deference to Parliament to 'protect' an undefined Australian community. The arrival of French CJ to the helm of the High Court might see a reinvigoration of common law rights via the principle of legality.

The challenge for critical corporate law scholars is to provide an account of corporate law that accommodates responsiveness to the public interest. This involves defining a space for debate about both the public policy goals of corporate law and the regulatory mechanisms for achieving those goals. This task is a complex one because it involves recognising the insights of law and economics scholars, in particular, that corporations are at once important components of markets and constituted by those markets. A recent book and winner of the 2008 Hart Socio-Legal Book Prize, The Constitutional Corporation by Stephen Bottomley, provides just such an account of corporate law. This book provides a pragmatic account of corporate law which opens up corporate law to political concerns while acknowledging that corporate law is private in its orientation. This review of The Constitutional Corporation provides an overview of Bottomley’s analysis, locates his approach in broader theoretical debates about corporate law and examines the potential of the approach to develop systems of corporate social responsibility in order to meet impending global challenges such as climate change.