2023 Kirby Seminar List

Collective Security in the 21^st Century: Lessons from Ukraine and Russia

Honorary Professor Dr Christopher Ward SC

Sydney Bar - Head of 6 St James Hall Chambers Sydney, Honorary Professor, ANU College of Law

In-person and online: 12 noon AEST Thursday 18 May 2023

In this Kirby Seminar, Dr Christopher Ward SC will address the systematic inadequacies of the UN Charter system and the opportunities for renewal and development. The war in Ukraine has highlighted the inability of the security structures established almost 80 years ago to meet the challenge of aggression instigated by permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Dr Christopher Ward is a Senior Counsel of the New South Wales Bar. He is the Head of Chambers of 6 St James Hall Chambers in Sydney and is an Associate Member of 3 Verulam Buildings Chambers in Gray’s Inn, London. He is an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University, Canberra.  Between 2018-2020 he was the global President of the International Law Association. He practises primarily in public international law, where he advises and represents States, listed corporations and international organisations. He has a substantial pro bono human rights practice and is an Ambassador for the Capital Punishment Justice Project.

Can New National ‘Nature Positive’ laws deliver for climate and nature in this critical decade?

Rachel Walmsley

Head of Policy and Law Reform Environmental Defenders Office, Sydney.

In-person and online: 12 noon AEST Monday 28 August 2023

In this Kirby Seminar, Rachel Walmsley will discuss the Australian Government’s ‘Nature Positive Plan’ in the context of the once-in-a-generation opportunity to make new national environment laws to effectively address climate and extinction crises. The December 2022 Nature Positive Plan responds to Professor Graeme Samuel’s review recommendations to modernise the outdated and ineffective Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth). It sets out the government’s priorities for national nature law reform and outlines much-needed reforms: requirements for legally enforceable national environmental standards, establishing a new national environment protection authority (EPA), improving community participation and trust in environmental decision-making, engaging First Nations, and ensuring a better understanding of climate impacts.

This Kirby seminar explores the imperative of translating the plan into new laws in this term of Parliament to ensure Australia is on track to meet 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, as well as no new extinctions and nature conservation and repair. Legislative drafting negotiations have commenced. A new and ambitious legal landscape is needed to deliver the promised ‘nature positive’ outcomes.

Rachel Walmsley Is Head of Policy and Law Reform at the Environmental Defenders Office. She is a member of government and non-government advisory committees on biodiversity, natural resource and environment issues, a legal advisor to the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, a legal advisor to the Places You Love alliance on national law reform, and guest lectures in environmental law. Rachel was a member of the Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law (APEEL) and is a member of IUCN – World Commission on Environmental Law. Rachel is a practising solicitor, with a Masters in Environmental Science and Law from the University of Sydney, a Bachelor of Laws with Honours in international biodiversity law and a Bachelor of Arts from ANU.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2006 and Commercial Lawyers

Professor Kris Gledhill

School of Law, Auckland University of Technology.

In-person and online: 12 noon AEST Thursday 21 September 2023

In this Kirby Seminar, Professor Kris Gledhill will explore the intersection between commercial law and human rights law. The seminar will particularly look at the potential impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2006 (CRPD) upon a variety of commercial law areas. In short, governments implementing the CRPD will be required to regulate multiple areas of commerce to be compliant. The CRPD will impact corporate actors in those states, who invest in those states or who trade with those states. Since most states in the world have ratified the CRPD, as has the European Union, this presentation will seek to illustrate why commercial lawyers need to be human rights lawyers.

Kris Gledhill is a Professor of Law at the School of Law, Auckland University of Technology, Aotearoa New Zealand. A graduate of the universities of Oxford and Virginia, his career spans over 30 years as both a legal practitioner and a law academic. This includes many aspects of law, with a particular focus on criminal law and human rights law, especially international human rights. As a London barrister, Kris worked largely in criminal law and representing the rights of detained people. Though always contributing to academia through teaching, journal articles and books, he became a full-time academic when moving with his family to New Zealand in the mid-2000s, first at the University of Auckland, then at the Auckland University of Technology from 2016.

Kris was attracted in part by the focus of AUT on industry connections and the willingness to integrate ‘real world’ examples into academic learning. One of his roles has been to establish clinical legal education as part of the AUT Law School curriculum. He maintains ongoing links with the legal profession, providing advice to practitioners and policymakers, is involved in drafting legislation, and regularly provides continuing professional development lectures. He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the New Zealand Criminal Bar Association for many years.

New tricks for old doctrines: Opening the common law ‘toolbox’ to address climate change-induced damage to property and the environment

Professor David Grinlinton

Faculty of Law, University of Auckland.

In-Person and Online: 12 noon AEDT Tuesday 24 October 2023.  Lewis Seminar Room, Room 30 Building W38, School of Law.

In this Kirby Seminar, Professor David Grinlinton will discuss the fact that extreme weather events in many countries demonstrate the clear and present danger posed by climate change to the safety and well-being of people and communities, to land, agricultural production and other natural resources, and generally to environmental and ecological values. The extreme weather and cyclonic activity in New Zealand in January-February 2023, was a recent example.

However, legal accountability and redress for those most seriously affected has received surprisingly little attention. The common law ‘toolbox’ offers various possibilities to address both the causes and effects of these impacts. These include actions seeking greater government and private sector accountability for matters like greenhouse gas emissions, and more direct remedies for public and private property damage resulting from inadequate government agency and local authority decision-making, as well as private sector practices in the use and development of natural resources.

This seminar will examine recent developments, including existing common law options and remedies, with the possibilities for further development of rules and doctrines such as public nuisance, the ‘public trust’ doctrine, and the doctrine of waste.

David Grinlinton VRD, BA (Massey), LLB (Hons) (Auckland), LLM (UWA), MDS (RMC Canada) is a Barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand. He joined the University of Auckland Faculty of Law in 1990 following time in legal practice in the property and energy sectors. His teaching and research includes real property law, environmental and natural resources law and housing law and policy. He has published widely in these areas and is a regular presenter at local and international conferences and symposia. David is a Founding Member of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law, General Editor of the New Zealand Journal of Environmental Law and co-author of Salmon and Grinlinton Environmental Law in New Zealand (2nd ed Thomson Reuters, 2018).

Wrongful convictions: Kinds, causes and solutions

Professor David Hamer

Sydney Law School, University of Sydney.

In-Person and Online: 12 noon Thursday 2 November 2023. Lewis Seminar Room, Room 30 Building W38, School of Law.

In this Kirby Seminar, Professor David Hamer will provide an overview of wrongful convictions in Australia, how they are treated by current law and the prospects for reform. Different kinds of wrongful convictions will be outlined, distinguishing between the notion of legal innocence and factual innocence. An overview will follow of known wrongful convictions and reflections made on the far larger number of hidden wrongful convictions. Acknowledging the limitations of our knowledge, the causes of the various kinds of wrongful convictions will be explored. Suggested reforms may assist both in the avoidance and correction of wrongful convictions.

The seminar will examine the regular conviction appeal process, the new subsequent appeal legislation (SA, Tas, Vic), and post-appeal reviews (eg, ACT, NSW). Recent high-profile cases will be placed into context, such as Pell (2020) 268 CLR 123, Eastman v ACT [2019] ACTSC 280, and Folbigg (pardoned, 5 June 2023). Consideration will be given to whether Australia should adopt a Criminal Cases Review Commission, following England (1997), Scotland (1999), New Zealand (2020), and Canada (in the near future).

David Hamer is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean (Postgraduate Coursework) at the University of Sydney School of Law. He is interested in how criminal courts deal with evidence in determining whether to convict or acquit defendants. While focusing on the details of evidence law and criminal procedure, he takes an interdisciplinary approach. His research engages both the psychology and the logic of proof and draws on empirical research and formal probabilistic models. His work further explores how the pursuit of factual accuracy is affected by other sometimes competing concerns: efficiency, fairness, and the overarching need to provide a mechanism for settling disputes that retains public acceptance. Another area of interest to David is the regulation of child sexual assault prosecutions. Drawing on David’s work, the recent Royal Commission recommended that the prosecution be able to place greater reliance on the accusations of other alleged victims to corroborate the complainant’s allegation. He is contributing to the development of laws to implement this Royal Commission recommendation.