This paper considers the ground of religious belief under anti-discrimination law and argues that it is a spectral ground. While discrimination is proscribed in the same way as other grounds, religious belief is never defined; it merely has to be ‘lawful’, which is also not defined. While the proscription emerged from an official commitment to state secularism, in addition to tolerance and diversity, its permeable character allows mainstream Christianity, neoconservative fundamentalism and other variables to seep into it. An analysis of discrimination complaints shows how this occurs metonymically through proscribed grounds, such as sex, sexuality, ethnicity and race. The phenomenon is most marked post-9/11 through what has come to be known as ‘Islamophobia’. The proscription of religious vilification and incitement to religious hatred, which takes discrimination on the ground of religious belief to a new plane, further reveals the tendency of the spectral ground to absorb prevailing political influences.

England is currently experiencing a widely recognised constitutional renaissance, with traditional English ‘liberties’ at its core: historic rights and liberty-affirming documents of the past are cited by counsel and judge alike, the Prime Minister waxes lyrical about constitutional values which define the British nation, scholars call for the revival of a purported rights-centric common law constitution, and a new breed of media-star historians are rediscovering English liberties in political institutions and re-imagined constitutional moments. Even the mythology of Magna Carta is resurfacing in the popular imagination, the date of its signing selected by public poll as ‘the best date to celebrate Britishness’.

The rhetoric contrasts with the dominant popular trope for much of the twentieth century, which portrayed the English constitution as essentially clever politics. Today’s constitutional veneration, however, has a long and complex history. This paper charts the variety of constitutional veneration that arose in the post-reformation period, as well as its decline, and contemporary revival. Starting with an overview of the seventeenth century, it charts the emergence of a constitutional language arising out of the rich theological and philosophical tradition of the age, and the persuasive use by the principal judicial figures of the day of new forms of historiography, traditional natural law philosophy, and emerging ethnic nationalism. Underpinned by contended notions of liberty and religiosity, this potent mix ensured that the newly minted English constitution enjoyed a quasi-religious status, embracing divinely ordained values and institutional arrangements that at once defined what it was to be both English and Protestant, and therefore was worthy of veneration. The decline of this constitutional model in the 19th and 20th century is then considered against the backdrop of empiricism, utilitarianism, nationalism and the victory of a political understanding of the constitutional model. The purported disappearance of the ‘legal’ constitution in this period, however, was never to be consolidated, nor were the contradictions inherent in the new ‘sovereignist’ model reconcilable with the explosion of rights jurisprudence in the latter part of the twentieth century. The article therefore concludes with a brief overview of the re-emergence of the language of constitutional faith in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, and the renewed reliance on this rhetoric of constitutional veneration by the judicial branch of government in an attempt to influence the development of a normative English constitutional and national identity.

This chapter forms the introductory essay to a collection of new essays on the relationship between the ethical philosphy of Levinas and the law, with a particular focus on delimiting the range and implications of Levinas' ambitious ethical agenda. Issues of responsibility and hospitality, self and other, ethics and politics, law and justice, are outlined with reference to the implications for law and to their further elaboration in the rest of the essays contained in this collection.

This article examines the relationship between the legal status of citizenship and psychological research about blended identity in diverse societies such as Australia. A blended identity could include Australian national identity as well as other identities relevant to a person's self-definition. Analysing the link between citizenship law and the psychological enjoyment of blended identity is important after the reforms to Australian citizenship law in 2007. As discussed below, the former Liberal-National Government introduced a new citizenship knowledge test for citizenship-by-conferral applicants. In doing so, that government expressed strong beliefs about the power of a shared, unitary, national identity. It also supported calls for citizenship applicants to sign a statement of Australian values (different to the citizenship pledge) and to complete an English language test. In light of the reforms and political debate, we attack the suggestion that blended identification (for example, as a Greek Australian) is somehow inconsistent with true Australian national identification and citizenship, and moreover we argue that a single national identification sits uneasily with the legal acceptance of dual and multiple citizenship in current Australian legislation.

The global economy is becoming increasingly integrated thanks to developments in technology, the reduction of trade barriers and the increase in direct foreign investment, particularly in developing states. Law, in the broadest sense of that term, has not integrated in the same way. This is, in our view, demonstrated starkly by the Oil-for-Food scandal. The transference of obligation from international to domestic legal systems has been settled for a long time. Ascertaining at what level responsibility attaches for monitoring compliance, investigating cases of apparent non-compliance and, where necessary, imposing sanctions remains unsettled, as this case study demonstrates.

This chapter considers two themes running through this collection: the public/private divide and the national/international divide in the context of the Cole Inquiry. Both the private nature of Australian Wheat Board Limited (‘AWB’) and the international nature of the UN sanctions regime and the Oil-for-Food Programme could be argued to have reduced the Australian Government’s responsibility for the circumstances leading to that inquiry. The Australian government was able to claim that it was not responsible for ensuring the veracity of the information provided by AWB. The Ministers whose portfolios were directly related claimed that the activities of AWB, as a private company, were outside of their control, that they did not know about the payments before they took action, and that other bodies under the UN sanctions regime had the obligation to do more in relation to checking the information provided. The distinctions between public and private, national and international, therefore, were used to deflect responsibility – at least at the political level – away from any deficiencies in the establishment of appropriate governance structures.

This is the introduction to the first volume of the new Cambridge University Press series Connecting International law with Public law.

The first volume is titled Sanctions, Accountability and Governance in a Globalised World and is edited by the authors of this introduction and explores fascinating questions that arise when legal regimes collide. Until now, international and public law have mainly overlapped in discussions on how international law is implemented domestically. While there is some scholarship developing in the area of global administrative law, and some scholars have touched upon the principles relevant to both disciplines, the publications to date contain only a subset of the concept underpinning this book. This first book aims to broaden understanding of how public and international law intersect. It is unique in consciously bringing together public and international lawyers to consider and engage in each other’s scholarship. What can public lawyers bring to international law and what can international lawyers bring to public law? What are the common interests? Which legal principles cross the international law/domestic public law divide and which principles are not transferable? What tensions emerge from bringing the disciplines together? Are these tensions inherent in law as a discipline as a whole or are they peculiar to law’s sub disciplines? Can we ultimately only fill in or fall between the cracks, or is there some greater potential for law in the engagement?

This paper considers the ground of religious belief under anti-discrimination law and argues that it is a spectral ground. While discrimination is proscribed in the same way as other grounds, religious belief is never defined; it merely has to be ‘lawful’, which is also not defined. While the proscription emerged from an official commitment to state secularism, in addition to tolerance and diversity, its permeable character allows mainstream Christianity, neoconservative fundamentalism and other variables to seep into it. An analysis of discrimination complaints shows how this occurs metonymically through proscribed grounds, such as sex, sexuality, ethnicity and race. The phenomenon is most marked post-9/11 through what has come to be known as ‘Islamophobia’. The proscription of religious vilification and incitement to religious hatred, which takes discrimination on the ground of religious belief to a new plane, further reveals the tendency of the spectral ground to absorb prevailing political influences.

Economic integration and citizen equality have been core ideals of American public schooling since its founding. The egalitarian ideals of free schooling, however, have never matched public school reality. Closing the gap between the idealistic rhetoric and the discriminatory reality of public schooling has been the target of school reform for decades and a major goal of the Civil Rights movement. This chapter recounts the effort to achieve equal educational opportunity for African Americans through school desegregation. Beginning with 19th century cases and continuing through Brown v. Board of Education to Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, this chapter provides an overview of the litigation and court decisions dealing with school segregation and desegregation, and creates a picture of advancement toward and retrenchment from the goals of equal educational opportunity. It compares school reformers to Sisyphus, struggling mightily to push schools toward the ideals of equal opportunity and equal access, only to see progress roll back, time and again.