Drawing on the Australian experience, this chapter shows how the fortunes of feminist legal theory (FLT) are closely imbricated with those of the state. The trajectory of the discomfiting liaison between feminism and the legal academy is traced over three decades to highlight the contingent nature of FLT, particularly the sensitivity to the prevailing political climate in which the pendulum swing from social liberalism to neoliberalism induces uncertainty and instability. It will be shown that under social liberalism, FLT received a modicum of acceptance within the legal academy but began to contract and then wither with the onset of neoliberalism. This has not only been disastrous for FLT, but it has also subtly brought about a remasculinisation of the academy.

International law has long been infused with a vague commitment towards an indeterminate notion of humanity. An examination of humanity as a specific normative idea in the historical discourse of international law provides a platform for better understanding the rhetorical and substantive meaning of ‘elementary considerations of humanity’ in the seminal Corfu Channel case, as well as Judge Alverez’s use of the more affective (and perhaps honest) term ‘sentiments of humanity’ in his separate opinion. With the Court otherwise silent as to the content, scope and status of the principle, such background informs the judicial attitudinal stance taken towards this apparently ‘self-evident’ principle, as well as the values which the Court and other international tribunals would subsequently bring to their norm creation and enforcement roles, not least with respect to general principles as a source of law. Drawing upon the work of Koskenniemi and the analyses of the Martens clause by scholars such as Meron and Cassese, the chapter places particular emphasis on the political, normative and empathetic potential of the term, and its inherent relationship to a foundational, essentialist and idealistic notion of humanity which continues to gain strength in the discipline.

Law students arrive at law school well-indoctrinated in the popular culture myth that the dominant role of the lawyer is as an advocate in an adversarial system. These students, if they become practicing lawyers, will be more likely to fill their days with negotiation than with litigation; they will be more likely to represent a client in mediation than at trial; they will more likely be deal-makers than gladiators. Nevertheless, their preconception or misconception of the dominance of the lawyers’ adversarial role will be reinforced in their legal training.

Adversarialism is deeply embedded in both the formal and the hidden curriculum of US and Australian law schools. While most law schools now teach courses that deal with non-adversarial processes, the pervasive ethos is – often unintentionally – adversarial. This ethos may constrain the way that students conceptualize their future roles and limit the possibility space available to them for creativity, constructive lawyering and peacemaking. The ethos also contributes to a climate of the law school hostile and unhappy for many students.

This paper explores the law school’s hidden adversarial curriculum – the unstated norms and values that are communicated to students. It uncovers some of the unintended messages sent through choices of teaching materials, classroom pedagogy, assessment practices, and extra-curricular emphasis on contests. The paper suggests that, by addressing the hidden curriculum, law schools can create more space for constructive lawyering and better prepare students for the variety of roles that they may inhabit as lawyers (including roles as advocates in adversarial processes). It will suggest that to provide greater room for non-adversarialism in law school and in legal practice, legal education must import non-adversarial processes and materials into its pedagogy; it must provide broader measures of student merit; and it must take control over the law school contest culture.

The challenge of teaching evidence or civil procedure is to devise a classroom experience that provides students with the contextual background of courtroom dynamics and opportunities for active engagement. This paper describes a variety of techniques that are effective for transforming the traditional law lecture into an interactive experience. Theme songs animate the classroom; high-impact images improve students’ ability to recall and relate doctrinal information to their experience; and quiz games and question slides and video give students to opportunity to actively engage in in-class legal decision-making. The techniques described here can be used together or separately to create an active learning experience that provides context for understanding and motivation for advanced study.

Janet Malcolm, in her brilliant rumination on the problem of biography in The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, writes:

… the narratives called biographies pale and shrink in the face of the disorderly actuality that is a life. … The goal is to make a space where a few ideas and images and feelings may be so arranged that a reader will want to linger awhile among them, rather than to flee…

A desire to linger awhile is certainly my reaction to reading and enjoying this fulsome account of the first 70 years of Michael Kirby’s life (drawing on over 117 metres of personal records held by the National Archives of Australia, extensive speeches and other papers prepared by the subject, not to mention his court judgments). Brown also skilfully makes space for a few central images and feelings to assist one’s progress through this extensive and absorbing book. The opening image shared with the reader is of the Khyber Pass, where Kirby was travelling for the second time with partner Johan van Vloten. It is 17 December 1973 and ‘This time, at least, there were no guns’. Three and a half years earlier, Afridi tribesmen ‘brandishing rifles’ asked if he was British and ‘the young Australian traveller answered yes’.

That a refugee often has a transformative experience in their encounter with a status determination regime is uncontentious. The practical need for legal recognition of a pre-existing status for the purpose of protection marries with a very personal need for recognition of one’s experience. The granting or withholding of either type of recognition has consequences for the various identities created in the process. Both depend upon the story told, and the manner of its reception.

This paper arose initially out of my own anecdotal experience as a legal representative for refugees over many years. It found its genesis in reflections on the role I played in helping shape the story that would be told to administrative decisions makers by my clients, and my growing concern that I was complicit in a process of legal institutionalisation, distortion and even alienation of something ‘authentic’ in the refugee experience and identity. As will become apparent, I am no longer so damning of my role and that of my fellow lawyers and decision-makers, or indeed of the ‘regulative discourse’ imposed by refugee law itself. The refugee has more agency than perhaps appears at first blush. I am also more questioning of my own original assumptions about authenticity, categorisation and recognition.

Citizenship is a prime site for comparison between different constitutional systems, for the idea of citizenship, and the ideals it is taken to represent, go to the heart of how states are constituted and defined. Who is governed by the constitution? What are the boundaries of the constitution? The definition of the class of 'citizens' of a state and the identification of their rights, privileges and responsibilities is one way to answer these questions, and is a core function of national constitutions and a central concern of public law. In this chapter, we consider several written constitutions and attempt to convey some of the diversity in constitutional approaches to this fundamental and universal project for nation states.

In the past two decades, many common law states have tweaked, modernized, or radically upended their methods of judicial selections, including Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. This article reviews a number of these innovations, including public hearings and efforts to set more 'objective' methods and criteria for selections. The article focuses on the impact of reforms on cultures of judicial decision-making and selections.

The report is written with the view that the workshops and the lessons drawn from them can aid in providing a community engagement model for other residential groups in different localities as well as for other community projects with different social groups. With this aim in mind, the hope is to encourage the completion of the project as envisaged which involves a comprehensive approach to civil participation, conflict management and constructive communication involving all sectors of civil society.

The report outlines the approach taken to the workshops and their outcomes and some of the challenges for communities who feel excluded and who may not have had positive experiences or training in how to navigate complex systems and have conversations. It makes some recommendations and outlines some of the lessons learned by all.

The workshops achieved the overall goal of the ‘Creating Right Spaces’ project: of benefiting people with the least access to justice and community development to voice their concerns and learn some skills that could be helpful to them. This was achieved on a small scale and yet this project demonstrates how beneficial such a program can be as well as the importance of it being a continuing project. “One off” funding misses the opportunity for ongoing recurrent work. Continued support is necessary if any real gains are to be made to ensure behaviour change and ongoing skills development and to ensure that the work can transcend often fixed negative patterns of behaviour and give people the capacity to generate real, long lasting and sustainable positive change.

The extraordinary richness of the interactions that arose in the workshops occurred not just from the stories shared and the skills learnt together but, in the words of the residents, from the growing awareness of how the strength of a community comes from within the community itself and its ability to organise, support and respect its members as well as learn more about creating better relationship and engagements. There was individual and collective growth which involved rekindling a sense of being worthy of happiness, opportunities, and a better future – and this happened because the group itself supported each person to take risks, acknowledged each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and demonstrated honesty, respect and gratitude.