Conferences & Workshops

National Conference on Australian Bills of Rights
8.30 am to 5.00 pm Friday 3 October 2008
The Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies Melbourne Law School

The conference was organised in conjunction with the Gilbert+Tobin Centre of Public Law (UNSW) and the ACT Human Rights Act Research Project at the Australian National University.

The one day event focused on developments in relation to legislative protection of human rights at state, territory and national levels in Australia, in particular, the recently enacted Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities 2006, the Australian Capital Territory's Human Rights Act 2004 and also the draft Bills being considered in Tasmania and Western Australia.

Key confirmed speakers included:

* The Right Hon Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias, New Zealand
* Lord Justice Sir Stephen Sedley, Judge of the Court of Appeal of
England and Wales (via dvd)
* Professor Johannes Chan SC, Dean of the Faculty of Law,
University of Hong Kong
* Debbie Mortimer SC, the Victorian Bar
* Sally Sheppard, Partner, Clayton Utz
* Joanna Davidson, Special Counsel Human Rights, Victorian
Government Solicitor's Office
* Associate Professor Carolyn Evans, Deputy Director CCCS,
Associate Dean (Research), the Melbourne Law School
* Associate Professor Jeremy Gans, the Melbourne Law School, Human
Rights Adviser to the Victorian Parliament's Scrutiny of Acts and
Regulations Committee
* Professor Hilary Charlesworth, RegNet and Director of the Centre
for International Governance and Justice (CIGJ), ANU
* Dr Edward Santow, Project Director, Australian Human Rights
Centre, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW

Program & registration form.

Program.

Critical inquiry in international law
with Professor David Kennedy, Vice president for International Affairs, Brown University.  
Monday 2 June 2008

David Kennedy is Vice President for International Affairs, University Professor of Law and David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of International Relations at Brown University. Kennedy is also the Manley O. Hudson Visiting Professor of Law and Director of the European Law Research Center at Harvard Law School, where he taught for more than twenty five years before moving to Brown, and Visiting Professor of Law at the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. He teaches international law, international economic policy, European law, legal theory, and law and development. He is the author of various articles on international law and legal theory, and founder of the New Approaches to International Law project.

This workshop was open to PhD Scholars.

Professor Kennedy also presented a public lecture at ANU on Monday 2 June 2008. For more details on this event please our Lectures and Seminars page.

Human Rights and Restorative Justice workshop: In memory of Justice Terry Connolly
Tuesday 26 February 2008
Room 1.04, Coombs Extension Building (8)
The Australian National University

This event will look at the contribution Justice Terry Connolly made to Human Rights and Restorative Justice in the ACT.

For more information please see the Workshop Program.

Some of the papers given at the workshop are available below:

Jon Stanhope - Opening Speech

Hilary Charlesworth - Terry Connolly’s Contributions to the Protection of Human Rights in the ACT

Simon Bronitt - Justice Connolly: Building a Common Law of Human Rights

Helen Watchirs - Concluding Remarks

2007 Protecting Human Rights
25 September 2007
Melbourne Law School , The University of Melbourne, Melbourne

This event will discuss developments in the protection of human rights by Australian charters and human rights acts. The conference provides an important opportunity to examine the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities, the ACT Human Rights Act and other bills of rights . Leading Australian and international speakers will also address the future of the protection of human rights, such as economic, social and cultural rights, in other States and territories and nationally. The day is aimed at both a legal and non-legal audience.

Program & registration form

From Empire to Empowerment?
Workshop on the Role of International Law in Building Justice and Democracy after Conflict
9-10 August 2007
ANU, Canberra

To date, the international community’s response to post-conflict issues has been ad hoc and reactive. In a 2004 report on justice and the rule of law, United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, called for ‘a common basis in international norms and standards’ to respond to questions of transitional justice and the rule of law in conflict and post-conflict societies, while avoiding a ‘one size fits all’ formula. But is this possible? And is this a useful enterprise? This workshop considered the role of international law in building justice and democracy in societies affected by conflict.

Papers from the workshop will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2008.

Workshop with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
With Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo
Tuesday 7 August
ANU, Canberra

Students and staff were invited to a special workshop with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.  The Prosecutor spoke about the development of the ICC and then responded to questions.  This was an exciting opportunity to hear about this historic tribunal.

On 21 April 2003, the Assembly of States Parties elected Mr. Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina as first Prosecutor of the ICC. Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has a distinguished career as prosecutor, trial attorney, university lecturer and legal strategist on issues ranging from criminal justice to human rights law, corruption control and journalists’ protection. Mr Moreno-Ocampo has been involved in several high profile cases of international criminal justice, including the extradition of former Nazi officer Erich Priebke to Italy, the trial of Chilean secret police for the murder of General Carlos Prats and the case against military commanders accused of malpractice during the Falklands (Malvinas) war. A member of the global board of Transparency International, Mr Moreno-Ocampo has also been a visiting professor at both Stanford University and Harvard University. He has resigned from all of these institutions in order to remain impartial during his tenure as Prosecutor of the Court.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo's visit was sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Working our Way
with Professor Catharine MacKinnon, Michigan Law School.  
Friday 27 July 2007
ANU, Canberra

Catharine A. MacKinnon, Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law, specializes in sex equality issues under international and constitutional law. She pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment and, with Andrea Dworkin, created ordinances recognizing pornography as a civil rights violation. The Supreme Court of Canada largely accepted her approaches to equality, pornography, and hate speech. Her scholarly books include Sex Equality (2001/2007), Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989), Only Words (1993), Women's Lives, Men's Laws (2005), and Are Women Human?
(2006). She is published in journals, the popular press, and many languages. Representing Bosnian women survivors of Serbian genocidal sexual atrocities, she won with co-counsel a damage award of $745 million in August 2000 in Kadic v. Karadzic, which first recognized rape as an act of genocide. She works with Equality Now, an NGO promoting international sex equality rights for women.

In this workshop, Professor MacKinnon reflected on the ways she has worked inside and outside the law.  Hilary Charlesworth (RegNet) and Kim Rubenstein (College of Law) commented.

Building Sustainable Peace in Bougainville
13 - 14 June 2007
Hutjena High School Hall, Buka, Bougainville

The conference was intended to be an opportunity for the people of Bougainville to draw their own lessons from their history, to reflect on the strengths of Bougainville society in building sustainable peace and development and to look forward, thinking critically about where there is still work to be done.

For more information on the conference please see flyer

What it is to be critical in International Law
Professor Gerry Simpson London School of Economics (LSE)
Tuesday 22 May 2007
ANU, Canberra

Gerry Simpson is professor in Public International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of Great Powers and Outlaw States (Cambridge, 2004) (awarded the American Society of International Law's annual prize for Pre-eminent Contribution to Creative Legal Scholarship) and is co-editor (with Tim McCormack) of The Law of War Crimes: National and International Approaches. His most recent books were War Crimes Law Volumes I and II (Ashgate, 2005) and he is currently completing two books: Law, War and Crime (Polity, 2006) and Iraq and Just War (ed. Ashgate, 2006).

For more information please visit his LSE or University of Melbourne staff profiles.

Critical International Legal Theory Workshop
27 November 2006
ANU Canberra

This event examined critical international legal theory.

Final program

Third World Approaches to International Law
3 July 2006
ANU Canberra

This event examined the approach to international law in third world and postcolonial countries.

Final program

Australian Bills of Rights: The ACT and Beyond [conference papers available]
21 June 2006
Law Lecture Theatre, ANU College of Law, ANU, Canberra

This one day event examined recent developments in Australian Bills of Rights.

Program & registration [pdf]
Program & registration [text-only word version]

Assessing the first year of the ACT Human Rights ACT
29 June 2005
Law Lecture Theatre, ANU College of Law, ANU , Canberra

Now Available - Conference website
including papers, powerpoint presentation and audio of sessions