Upcoming events and opportunities
Read our monthly round up of upcoming public law events and opportunities, including conferences, seminars and calls for papers
If you have an AUSPUBLAW opportunity, conference or significant public lecture that you would like included in this roundup, please contact us at auspublaw@unsw.edu.au. The roundup is published once a month by the first business day of the month, so please let us know in time for that deadline.
We would like to firstly draw your attention to the following opportunity:
Survey: Digitising the Drafting of the Australian Constitution
The Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage, Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant ‘Digitising the Drafting of the Australian Constitution’ (LE230100159) is seeking participants who work in Australian law and engage with the Australian Constitution to complete a short, online survey. The Participant Information and Consent form and survey questions are available here: https://uwa.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9WBziGsSzeeDan4
The purpose of the survey is to better understand how researchers and legal practitioners who engage with the Australian Constitution make use of the Convention debates and other historical materials on the drafting of the Constitution. The survey results will inform the Australian Research LIEF grant. Led by the University of Western Australia, the grant involves a collaboration between the Quill Project at Pembroke College, University of Oxford and nine Australian universities (Adelaide, ANU, Deakin, Melbourne, Monash, Queensland, Sydney, UNSW, UWA). The project will create an open-access, online archive that consolidates, corrects and enhances the digital record of the drafting of the Australian Constitution. The survey will assist the Chief Investigators in optimising the online archive so that it is as useful as possible to potential users of the platform. The survey data may also inform scholarly publications on the project and the use of the drafting materials in constitutional interpretation.
The survey will take approximately ten minutes to complete. The data obtained through the survey will be anonymised. The survey has been approved by the UWA Human Research Ethics committee. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the lead Chief Investigator, Associate Professor Murray Wesson, by email (murray.wesson@uwa.edu.au) or phone (08 6488 3440). We’re seeking responses from a range of potential users (academics, solicitors, barristers, judges, judges’ associates etc) so please also feel free to distribute the survey to your networks.
Yours sincerely,
Associate Professor Murray Wesson (UWA), Professor Sarah Murray (UWA), Associate Professor Tamara Tulich (UWA), Professor John Williams (Adelaide), Professor Anne Twomey (Sydney), Professor Nicholas Aroney (Queensland), Professor James Stellios (ANU), Professor Rosalind Dixon (UNSW), Professor Ann Genovese (Melbourne), Professor Luke Beck (Monash), Professor Melissa Castan (Monash), Associate Professor Benjamin Saunders (Deakin), Dr Dylan Lino (Queensland), Dr Jacinta Dharmananda (UWA), Dr Nicholas Cole (Oxford)
Competitions and calls for papers
22 November 2024
Call for Abstracts: Public Law in the Classroom 2025
Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, University of New South Wales
CfA closes: 22 November 2024
Abstracts are invited from teachers of public law for sessions at the Public Law in the Classroom Workshop to be held in a hybrid format – in-person at UNSW Sydney and online – on Thursday 6 February 2025. We especially encourage abstracts from early career teachers and sessional academics. Each session will feature short presentations of 5–7 minutes from three to four speakers, followed by a moderated plenary discussion. You are not required to prepare a formal paper. Instead, we see the role of panellists as providing a series of provocations for discussion in the workshop.
Session 1 will focus on Building Micro-Skills needed to study law – such as, how to take notes, how to read for class, and how to understand an assessment task. We are interested in abstracts from public law teachers discussing the approaches they have taken to help their students develop and strengthen this toolkit.
Session 2 will focus on Design and Visualisation to Increase Engagement. We are interested in abstracts from public law teachers who have been thinking about, and deploying, creative strategies to increase student engagement in public law subjects, and to help students think about how the material we teach fits together within courses, and across courses.
Session 3 will focus on Assessment. We are interested in abstracts that engage with assessment design and giving feedback – particularly in ‘authentic’ assessment tasks – and encourage teachers to think both about what has worked well, and what hasn’t worked.
Please submit abstracts by 5pm on Friday 22 November 2024 to gtcentre@unsw.edu.au with the subject line ‘Public Law in the Classroom Abstract’. Workshop organisers will advise on successful submissions by 30 November 2024.
For more information, click here.
31 December 2024
ASLP Essay Competition
Australasian Society of Legal Philosophy (ASLP)
Entries close: 31 December 2024
The ASLP Essay Competition is designed to encourage original research and writing in legal theory and philosophy of law by early career scholars around the world. The author of the winning essay will receive a cash prize of AU$1,000, plus a contribution of up to AU$500 towards the cost of attendance at the Society’s annual conference to present the essay as a paper.
The competition is open to students who are currently enrolled in a postgraduate degree program (Master or Doctoral) in any discipline (or who wrote their submission in 2024 while enrolled in such a program that they have now completed).
Submissions may be on any topic in legal theory or the philosophy of law. Essays must be in English and not exceed 15,000 words (including notes, references, headings, etc).
For more information, and to submit an entry, click here.
7 February 2025
The Baxter Family Essay Competition on Federalism 2024-2025 - Federalism: Thinking Outside the Box
McGill University Faculty of Law
Entries close: 7 February 2025
McGill University’s Faculty of Law and the Peter MacKell Chair in Federalism are proud to announce that the Baxter Family Competition on Federalism has returned for a fifth edition.
The Essay Competition seeks to promote informed debate on federalism by students and young professionals from around the world. The Competition is open to law and political science students/PhD candidates, junior scholars and practitioners who graduated in these disciplines.
The three winners will be given the opportunity to present their paper at a Symposium in May 2025 in Montreal. First-, second- and third-place winners will receive prizes of $5,000, $3,000, and $1,000 (CAD) respectively.
Participants are invited to submit an original essay related to the fifth edition’s overall theme, Federalism: Thinking Outside the Box, by February 7th, 2025.
The broad theme welcomes reflections on the following inquiries:
Can federalism reinvent itself to include actors that have often been left out (municipalities, Indigenous peoples, civil society, etc.)?
Can institutions of self-rule and joint rule be recast to better meet contemporary policy and polycentric challenges?
How can comparative law and politics help to “think outside the box”?
For more information, click here.
Conferences and seminars
1 November 2024
2024 Harry Evans Lecture: Reflections on Senate committees
Procedure and Research Section, Department of the Senate
Date: 1 November 2024
Time: 12.15-1.15pm (AEDT)
Location: Online or In-person at Theatre, Parliament House
Shaping the development of the modern Senate committee system is considered to be one of Harry Evans' most significant achievements. In this lecture former senators Claire Moore, Marise Payne and Rachel Siewert will discuss their experience, and reflections, on Senate committees.
For more information, and to register, click here.
7 November 2024
The right to equality under Australian human rights legislation
Human Rights Law Association
Date: 7 November 2024
Time: 5.15-6.30pm (AEST)
Location: Online and In-person at Bld A4, Room 130, JCU Cairns, Nguma-bada Campus, Smithfield
"Equality permeates every pore" of the human rights legislation in the ACT, Victoria and Queensland. It is the first human right recognised in all three Acts and is a recurring theme in other rights. Each jurisdiction protects the right to equality in similar terms, but with important differences.
The ACT Human Rights Act defines discrimination in an open-ended way, the Victorian Charter aligns the concept of discrimination to its anti-discrimination legislation, and the Queensland Human Rights Act includes an inclusive definition of discrimination linked to its anti-discrimination legislation. Recent decisions of the Queensland Supreme Court have divided on the correct approach.
This seminar will explore these differences, and the possibilities and challenges they present for achieving substantive equality.
Chair: Kylie Evans SC, a leading barrister in public, administrative and human rights matters in Australia
Speaker: Dr Alice Taylor, Assistant Professor at Bond University
For more information, and to register, click here.
8 November 2024
GSPL Reading Group Series - Cora Chan
Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, University of New South Wales; Greater Sydney Law Schools’ Public Law Reading Group
Date: 8 November 2024
Time: 1.00-2.00pm (AEDT)
Location: Online and In-person at Level Two, Boardroom, UNSW Law & Justice Building (F8)
Courts play a crucial role in upholding commitments to human rights in Australia and elsewhere. But there are also important limits to that role. The question this raises is how they should define and maintain those limits, or when and how they should defer to political actors in this process. In this special seminar, hosted by the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law and Greater Sydney Law Schools’ Public Law Reading Group, Professor Cora Chan (HKU) explores these questions through the lens of her important new book, Deference in Human Rights Adjudication (OUP 2024), and in conversation with Centre Director Professor Rosalind Dixon.
The session will be chaired by Centre member Harry Hobbs (Associate Professor, UNSW Law & Justice).
The event will be held in a hybrid format at the UNSW Law & Justice (F8), level two, boardroom and online via Teams. For those attending in-person, lunch will be served at 1pm.
For more information, and to register, click here.
13 November 2024
Michael Will address by Justice John Griffiths - Is there too much access to administrative justice: a project for the revived Administrative Review Council?
Australian Institute of Administrative Law
Date: 13 November 2024
Time: 5.30-7.30pm (AEDT)
Location: Online and In-person at Boardroom, Proximity, Level 2, 55 Blackall Street, Barton ACT
The speaker for the Michael Will Address is Justice John Griffiths. John Griffiths has been an acting justice of the NSW Court of Appeal since April 2022. He took up that appointment after having served as a judge of the Federal Court for almost ten years. John lectured in law at Cambridge University for several years prior to returning to Australia as the Director of Research of the Administrative Review Council. He then practised as a solicitor and then a barrister for 26 years, primarily in public law litigation
The address is open to all members of the AIAL and to any interested members of the public. The address will be followed by the AIAL annual general meeting.
For more information, and to register, click here.
14 November 2024
Climate migrants as the new stateless persons
Australian National University College of Law
Date: 14 November 2024
Time: 1.00-2.00pm (AEDT)
Location: Phillipa Weeks Library, Level 4, Building 7, ANU College of Law
It is frequently asserted that international law is not up to the challenge of protecting persons forced to flee their homes due to climate change and natural disaster. This presentation challenges that position even as it concedes that extant protection regimes do leave a coverage gap that needs to be filled. Rather than relying on refugee law to answer the normative challenge, this presentation opens the door to considering the alternative of statelessness as a more conceptually appropriate and politically wiser alternative.
Speaker: Professor James Hathaway, James E. and Sarah A. Degan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School
For more information, and to register, click here.
14 November 2024
Cultural Rights in Conservation
James Cook University
Date: 14 November 2024
Time: 4.00-5.00pm (AEST)
Location: Online and In-person at Bld A4, Room 130, JCU Cairns, Nguma-bada Campus, Smithfield
Join us for a compelling presentation by JCU Professor Gary Meyers as he explores the debate over the cultural rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to hunt and fish for endangered species, such as turtles and dugongs, in North Queensland. This issue has sparked significant discussion between conservation groups and Indigenous Australians.
Professor Meyers will examine how these rights are exercised and regulated under federal and state laws, highlighting the potential for better regulation to balance cultural traditions and conservation efforts. Don't miss this opportunity to learn about sustainable solutions that respect cultural traditions and protect our natural heritage.
For more information, and to register, click here.
14 November 2024
Sir Gerard Brennan: Constrained Compassion
Selden Society
Date: 14 November 2024
Time: 5.30-6.30pm (AEST)
Location: Online and In-person at Banco Court, Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, Level 3, 415 George Street, Brisbane
Sir Gerard Brennan has been one of Australia’s most important barristers and judges since World War II. As a judge, he made many significant contributions to Australian jurisprudence. The most consequential of these was the leading judgment in the High Court’s decision in Mabo recognising the rights of occupation of Australia’s indigenous peoples.
A few short years later in the Wik case, Brennan CJ dissented from the Court’s decision that native title had not been extinguished by grants of pastoral leases under Colonial and State legislation.
The key to understanding the fundamental consistency of these two judgments lies in an appreciation of Brennan’s fidelity to the constraints upon judicial decision making required by the constitutional separation of legislative and judicial power.
Speaker: The Hon Patrick Keane AC KC, Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong and former justice of the High Court of Australia
For more information, and to register, click here.
17-19 November 2024
43rd Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society
University of New South Wales Faculty of Law & Justice
Date: 17-19 November 2024
Location: Online and In-person at Bld A4, Room 130, JCU Cairns, Nguma-bada Campus, Smithfield
2024 Conference Theme: Change and Continuity
Change and continuity are recurring themes in law and history, the inexorably shifting ebbs and flows as society and its laws adapt to the dynamic contours of space, place, and time; and the physical and metaphysical influences of context. Change presages reform, disruption, and transformation, while continuity assures of stability, permanence, or the perceived comfort of incremental ‘progress’. Change and continuity appear as polar opposites, and they often are, yet at times, they also complement each other, speaking to latent tensions that are both coherent and incoherent and compatible and incompatible, often at the same time.
Session topics include:
Interpreting Legal History
Legal Histories & Land
Navigating Colonial Histories
International Legal Histories
Women’s Legal Histories
There is a fee for this conference. For more information, and to register, click here.
20 November 2024
The Annual Kirby Lecture in International Law: Claiming Queer Liberty
Australian National University College of Law
Date: 20 November 2024
Time: 5.00-7.30pm (AEDT)
Location: ANU College of Law Moot Court, Fellows Road, ACT
Sexual liberty must come out of the international legal closet. While non-discrimination and privacy law have been the basis for some very important queer rights victories, they cannot deliver that which is most central to queer sexuality: the right to have consensual sex outside the confines of the classic marital, procreative model. Beyond enabling international human rights law more fully to advance human dignity, this shift would afford an opportunity to refurbish the international human rights edifice in a globally inclusive way—something that continued pursuit of an identity-based, integrative queer rights agenda cannot achieve.
If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please contact the event organiser.
Speaker: Professor James Hathaway, James E. and Sarah A. Degan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School
For more information, and to register, click here.
20-22 November 2024
2024 Emerging Scholars Network Annual Workshop
Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law and the Forced Migration Research Network, University of New South Wales
Date: 20-22 November 2024
Time: 1.00-5.00pm (AEDT)
Location: Level Two, UNSW Law & Justice Building, UNSW Sydney, Kensington Campus, NSW 2052
2024 Conference Theme: Change and Continuity
The workshop is a hybrid event held over three days from Wednesday 20 to Friday 22 November in Sydney, Australia, and brings together early career scholars in the field of refugee and forced migration studies.
This year the workshop is bigger than ever. We have planned three days of activities, including expert panel sessions, scholar presentations, masterclasses, a book launch, a keynote oration and a social coastal walk.
Panel topics include:
Building a Career for Research Impact - Knowledge Exchange
Translating Knowledge into Practice - Tips and Tricks
Masterclass topics include:
Trauma Informed Interviewing
Writing for The Conversation
There are limited in-person tickets available and a small ticketing cost is included to help cover some of the catering costs for in-person attendance. However, should this cost be a barrier for you, please feel free to contact the Kaldor Centre as we want to make sure everyone has equal opportunity to attend.
For more information, and to register, click here.
21 November 2024
2024 Kaldor Centre Oration
Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice
Date: 21 November 2024
Time: 6.30-8.30pm (AEDT)
Location: Playhouse Theatre, NIDA, Kensington
Join us for our new flagship lecture, the Kaldor Centre Oration, on 21 November 2024.
The Kaldor Centre Oration is designed to enrich the public conversation on refugee issues by showcasing transformational ideas that can spark fresh thinking and action. It is a valuable opportunity to build shared understanding and pursue positive solutions.
The inaugural Oration will be delivered by Kate Eastman AM SC, with a response from Zaki Haidari, and followed by a reception and refreshments.
Among their many accomplishments, Kate Eastman AM SC is a barrister at New Chambers and a Commissioner at the New South Wales Law Reform Commission, and Zaki Haidari is a refugee rights advocate with Amnesty International.
We welcome anyone interested in creating a better future – be they people with lived experience of displacement, civil society, legal practitioners, policymakers, business leaders or community members – to join us for this lively evening of thought-provoking ideas, discussion and connection.
For more information, and to register, click here.
22 November 2024
First Annual Children’s Rights Symposium for Australia and the Asia-Pacific
School of Law, Western Sydney University
Date: 22 November 2024
Time: 8.30am-6.00pm (AEDT)
Location: In-person at Conference Rooms 22, 23 & 36, Building EZ, The Female Orphan School, Western Sydney University Parramatta South Campus Rydalmere NSW 2116
On 22 November 2024, the School of Law, Western Sydney University will hold a Symposium themed The Convention on the Rights of the Child at 35: Developments in children’s rights in Australia, Asia-Pacific, and the World.
We invite academics and researchers with an interest in children’s rights to attend this event, which brings together some of the world’s leading scholars in the field of children’s rights.
Keynote speakers:
Commissioner Anne Hollonds, the National Children's Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission
Commissioner Natalie Lewis, Queensland Family and Child Commission
Justice Vui Clarence Nelson, Supreme Court of Samoa and former member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
Professor Ton Liefaard, Leiden Law School
Keynote panel chair: Professor John Tobin, Melbourne Law School
Participation requires registration. Registration is complimentary.
For more information, and to register, click here.
25 November 2024
Human Rights Symposium
Centre for Law and Social Justice, University of Newcastle
Date: 25 November 2024
Time: 10.00am-6.00pm (AEDT)
Location: University of Newcastle’s Sydney Campus, 55 Elizabeth Street, Martin Place, Sydney
Australia has reached a moment of significant opportunity in human rights terms. The Australian Human Rights Commission has concluded its landmark Free and Equal inquiry and published a report recommending major reform of Australia’s human rights framework. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has reported on its own inquiry, issuing several complementary recommendations to Government, including for the passage of a national Human Rights Act.
This one-day event will welcome speakers with diverse perspectives on Australia’s legal system to present research and share lived experiences relevant to Australia’s human rights framework.
For more information, and to register, click here.
27 November 2024
From Discrimination to Death: Genocide Process through a Human Rights Lens
Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law, University of Queensland
Date: 27 November 2024
Time: 11.00am-12.00pm (AEST)
Location: Law School Board Room (W353), Level 3, Forgan Smith Building, The University of Queensland, St Lucia
From Discrimination to Death studies the process of genocide through the human rights violations that occur during genocide. Using individual testimonies and in-depth field research from the Armenian Genocide, Holocaust and Cambodian Genocide, this book demonstrates that a pattern of specific escalating human rights abuses takes place in genocide. Offering an analysis of all these particular human rights as they are violated in genocide, the author intricately brings together genocide studies and human rights, demonstrating how the ‘crime of crimes’ and the human rights law regime correlate. The book applies the pattern of rights violations to the Rohingya Genocide, revealing that this pattern could have been used to prevent the violence against the Rohingya, before advocating for a greater role for human rights oversight bodies in genocide prevention.
Speaker: Dr Melanie O’Brien, Associate Professor of International Law at the UWA Law School
For more information, and to register, click here.
27 November 2024
Ending contemporary forms of slavery: what is Australia’s position?
Australian National University College of Law
Date: 27 November 2024
Time: 2.00-4.00pm (AEDT)
Location: Phillipa Weeks Library, Level 4, Building 7, ANU College of Law
How are Australia’s governments, business and finance sectors, civil society - and the consuming public - faring in what is intended to be a shared societal effort to combat contemporary forms of slavery, both ‘onshore’ and in the global supply chains on which we rely?
Join ANU College of Law for this open public discussion with the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, the Hon Tomoya Obokata. The Special Rapporteur will share reflections on his mandate, and the efforts of Australia and Australians, as he wraps up the Canberra leg of his official visit to Australia.
The event will be hosted by Professor Jo Ford (ANU Law) and is presented in collaboration with Be Slavery Free.
For more information, and to register, click here.
3 December 2024
Housing and the human right to a home
Human Rights Law Association
Date: 3 December 2024
Time: 5.15-6.30pm (AEST)
Location: Online and In-person at Room 1M16, UQ Brisbane City, 308 Queen Street
Speakers: The Hon Kevin Bell AO KC and Professor Tamara Walsh
Part of what it means to be human is the need for home, a place to retreat to from the outside world. Having a home is a fundamental human right, as an end in itself and as a means to fulfil other human rights. While the socio-economic right to housing has not been incorporated into domestic Australian Charters, they do protect associated civil rights, including the freedom to choose where to live, the right to property and the right not to have one's home unlawfully or arbitrarily interfered with.
In this seminar, we bring together two of Australia's preeminent thinkers on the right to housing and home at a time when access to housing is becoming more and more elusive.
For more information, and to register, click here.
23-24 January 2025
ICON•S Aus/NZ Chapter, Constitutional Theory Group: Plenary Conference 2025
ICON•S Aus/NZ Chapter
Date: 23-24 January 2025
Location: Monash University, Melbourne CBD Campus
The Constitutional Theory Group of the ICON•S Aus/NZ Chapter is a collection of over 40 constitutional scholars in Australia and New Zealand whose works focus at least in part on theoretical questions relating to the constitutions. The Group’s conveners are Lisa Burton Crawford, Ed Willis and Ron Levy.
Approximately every two years, the Constitutional theory group holds a plenary conference, which all members are invited to attend as presenters or participants. This Biennial Plenary Conference features a mix of keynote events, usually geared toward new books, as well as panel presentations. The next conference will be held at Monash University's Melbourne CBD campus on 23-24 January, 2025. If you are an Australian or New Zealand academic (including a PhD student) interested in this conference, or in the group more generally, feel free to contact ron.levy@anu.edu.au.
We are grateful to Monash University’s Paul Burgess for co-hosting the upcoming conference.
6 February 2025
Public Law in the Classroom Workshop 2025
Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, University of New South Wales; Public Law and Policy Research Unit, University of Adelaide; Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University; Western Sydney University School of Law
Date: 6 February 2025
Time: 11.00am-5.15pm (AEDT)
Location: Online and In-person at UNSW Law & Justice Building, UNSW Kensington Campus, Sydney
The eleventh annual Public Law in the Classroom workshop will be held at UNSW Sydney and online on Thursday, 6 February 2025.
The workshop is organised by the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at UNSW, the Public Law and Policy Research Unit at the University of Adelaide, the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University and the School of Law at Western Sydney University. The past ten workshops have been a great success, each attracting public law teachers from across the country and internationally.
The first panel session will focus on Building Micro-Skills, and will explore how teachers have helped their students to develop the ‘micro-skills’ needed to study law, such as how to take notes, how to read for class, how to understand an assessment task, etc. The second panel session will focus on Design and Visualisation to Increase Engagement and will explore how visualisation and the design of materials can bring public law to life, encourage pre-class preparation and help students in organising their knowledge. The third panel session will focus on Authentic Assessment and will explore both assessment design, as well as the provision of feedback – particularly in the context of authentic assessment.
For more information, and to register, click here.
25-26 February 2025
Leading in the Law 2025
Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession, University of New South Wales Law and Justice
Date: 25-26 February 2025
Location: Tyree Room, John Niland Scientia Building, UNSW Kensington Campus
Join Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession on February 25 and 26 2025 for the inaugural two-day summit to discover how lawyers lead in various capacities, from self and team leadership to shaping the profession and impacting society.
Be inspired and motivated by our lineup of speakers who are leaders in the field. Attendees can expect an immersive two days with front line presentations and panel discussions, exploring the multifaceted ways lawyers and the legal sector lead.
Speakers include:
The Hon Andrew Bell, Chief Justice of New South Wales
Juliana Warner, President Elect, Law Council of Australia
Stuart Fuller, KPMG Head of Global Legal Services
Topics include:
Access to justice as leadership
Breaking Barriers: structural challenges to diversity in the legal profession
Technology - leading beyond competence
There is a fee for this event.
For more information, and to register, click here.