The debate about the extent of the interaction between WTO law and public international law has existed for as long as the WTO itself. While WTO case law confirms a willingness of panels and the Appellate Body to embrace interpretative rules of general international law, engagement with non-trade obligations under non-WTO treaties has been more patchy. Nonetheless, the reality of competing international legal obligations on States will continue to grow. Could a deliberate shift to consider non-WTO obligations in WTO disputes help maintain the relevance of the institution?

Space law and space politics are determined by the same big players as terrestrial geopolitics, and therefore in asking how to govern space, we have to take the current realities of international relations and international law into account. How are new entrants interacting with the international space law regime inherited from the Cold War, and what kinds of new governance structures might we need to deal with the increasing number and kinds of participants emerging in the space sector? I take a critical perspective, drawing on feminist legal theory and Third World Perspectives on International Law (TWAIL) to pose further questions: who is exercising power over the development of new legal and governance norms in space and who is excluded from this? I argue that, because we are all so dependent on space for our contemporary existence, 21st century space governance needs to take into account more than the interests of the biggest players.

The article focuses on the “legitimate interest in performance” requirement which is now at the heart of the new test on penalty clauses but which has been left undefined by the Supreme Court in Cavendish Square Holding BV v Talal El Makdessi and Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis [2016]. It seeks to bring clarity to what is meant by “legitimate interest in performance” by examining other areas of the law of remedies for breach of contract where concepts of legitimate interest have featured in the court’s reasoning. It also makes suggestions as to what considerations are or might be relevant in determining whether a contracting party has a legitimate interest in performance, in particular a legitimate interest that goes beyond compensation.

This paper draws on data collected from the ASX 50 with a focus on policy commitment to human rights. As the UNGP makes clear a visible and accessible policy commitment is the most basic form of recognition that corporations should afford to human rights. The paper takes the position that this policy commitment offers corporations a chance to declare a positive relationship with human rights. Therefore the presence or not of a policy statement, and the form that the statement takes, tells us much about the relationship between the corporate sector and human rights. The data reveals that there is generally a low compliance with the policy commitment requirement. The most significant factor amongst a range of variables examined for predicting whether compliance will occur or not is membership of human rights engaged Business and Industry Non-Governmental Organisations (BINGOs). We might expect a rather stronger public commitment to human rights reflecting the position taken by Australian corporations on other ESG standards. The paper suggests that the absence of human rights discourse as a political and cultural artifact at the domestic nation state level is a possible explanation for this.

In digital economies, the Internet enables the "platformisation" of everything. Big technology companies and mobile apps are running mega marketplaces, supported by seamless online payments systems. This rapidly expanding ecosystem is fueled by data. Meanwhile, perceptions of the global financial crisis, data breaches, disinformation and the manipulation of political sentiment have combined to create a modern trust crisis. A lack of trust constrains commerce, particularly in terms of consumer protection and investment. Big data, artificial intelligence, automated algorithms and blockchain technology offer new solutions and risks.

Trust in our legal systems depends on certainty, consistency, and enforceability of the law. However, regulatory and remedial gaps exist because the law has not kept up with technology. This work explores the role of competency and good faith, in the creation of social and legal relationships of trust; and the need for governance transparency and human accountability to combat distrust, particularly in digital economies.

Uber and Airbnb signify new ways of working and doing business by facilitating direct access to providers through new digitalised platforms. The gig economy is also beginning to percolate into legal practice through what is colloquially known as NewLaw. Eschewing plush offices, permanent staff and the rigidity of time billing, NewLaw offers cheaper services to clients to compete more effectively with traditional law firms. For individual lawyers, autonomy, flexibility, a balanced life, well-being and even happiness are the claimed benefits. The downside appears that NewLaw favours senior and experienced lawyers while disproportionately affecting recent graduates. This article draws on interviews with lawyers in Australian and English NewLaw firms to evaluate the pros and cons of NewLaw.

Both ancient philosophers and modern psychologists assure us that our happiness and our values are inextricably linked: true happiness and wellbeing come not from the mere pursuit of pleasure, but from living in accordance with values that give us a sense of meaning and connection with others and self. This chapter explores the relationship between happiness (defined as subjective wellbeing) and values, and the implications of this relationship for law students and lawyers, law schools and legal workplaces. Research shows that the more we enact, rather than just subscribe to, certain values, the greater will be our wellbeing. Further, the psychological factors that influence whether lawyers experience wellbeing also influence their ethical decision-making and level of professionalism. We know that law school curricula affect student wellbeing; law schools also play a critical role in supporting (or inhibiting) the development of professional values and in teaching skills to enable students and future lawyers to live out those values. After law school, workplace culture can profoundly influence our wellbeing, while also influencing whether we are able to express/enact our professional values. Evidence suggests that effective regulation can encourage legal practices to improve their ethical cultures, which in turn could improve wellbeing. We need as a profession to attend to this connection between wellbeing and values; to fulfil its role in society, the legal profession needs to be well, which means being deeply connected to values.

This Chapter traces the development of procedural transparency in international investment arbitration to tease apart different types of transparency, whilst also considering their objectives and consequences. The analysis indicates that the meaning, promise and limits of transparency will differ for different stakeholders and different reform objectives. The Chapter draws out the differences between the concepts of transparency as ‘availability’, ‘access’, and ‘participation’ to identify three distinct types of ‘transparency’. It connects these concepts to the reforms to procedural transparency that have occurred for investment arbitration to date. This supports an analysis of whether the types of transparency reforms that have been pursued thus far are adapted to achieving their stated purposes. What emerges is an understanding of transparency that is closely connected to the development of, and hopes for, international investment arbitration. Transparency has emerged as a key means of improving international investment arbitration, including to make it more accountable and more legitimate. An agenda that seeks to identify and enact effective reforms to reach this promise must take into account the types of transparency best adapted to achieve these goals. In considering transparency in international investment arbitration, then, it is vital that States, arbitral institutions, and other stakeholders confront the assumptions and motivations underpinning suggested reforms in order to best adapt those reforms to achieve their stated objectives. The contours of the discussion in this Chapter hold importance for reform agendas in other fields of international arbitration. It highlights the importance of clarifying what is being proposed, what is being excluded from that discussion, and how these understandings influence the concrete outcomes of reform efforts as well as the appraisal of their success by disparate stakeholders.

For a long time judicial review in Australia was little more than a carbon copy of its English equivalent. In the period before the various Australian states became part of a unified federal nation, judicial review occurred within the inherent supervisory jurisdiction of the various Supreme Courts of those individual colonies and proceeded in a manner similar to that of English courts exercising inherent supervisory jurisdiction. The Australian Constitution is now the defining feature and dominant force of our judicial review doctrine. The key feature of the Australian Constitution that has enabled the recognition and entrenchment of judicial review of administrative action is the express creation and entrenchment of the courts. The express recognition and protection of a selection of the judicial remedies has proved equally important because the constitutional mention of some of the traditional remedies of judicial review has provided the foundation for the courts to entrench by implication that which necessarily precedes the issue of those remedies. While these and other important elements of the Australian Constitution have enabled the development of constitutionally protected avenues of supervisory review, this same constitutional foundation has also provided the source of judicial review principles that increasingly differ from their early English heritage. Many parallels between English and Australian principles remain and the one we discuss about natural justice suggests that, as happens within so many families, Australian judicial review can unwittingly replicate the mistakes of its English parent.