As you know, at Melbourne Law School we have embraced new digital technologies in our teaching and research. Our Associate Dean (Student Life), Dr Brad Jessup, who commenced mid-year, is also harnessing virtual technologies to build connection between students and staff, and between students also. This semester, for example, former High Court Justice Kenneth Hayne AC QC will run a series entitled Joining the Dots for our final year JD students to inspire them to think beyond law school subjects to the ways in which law operates as a body of doctrine/knowledge. Professor Hayne will also ask students to reflect on statutory construction, case reading and legal writing. Alumni in the USA are also assisting to judge the International Humanitarian Law moot as a result of their location in a common time zone as our USA-based JD students. I am inspired by the generous acts of our alumni to support our current students.
And Associate Professor Gary Cazalet is once again running the ‘pop-up’ legal design and technology competition. The competition was first launched in 2019 and was resoundingly popular with students. In its 2021 iteration, the competition is supported by Maddocks and King & Wood Mallesons, and has attracted more than 50 students. Over four weeks from August to September, participating students will learn from industry experts on topics including human-centred legal design, how to use legal tech software, and creating legal technology. I am pleased to see that many of this year’s guest speakers are former MLS students who went through Associate Professor Cazalet’s Law Apps class and are now working in technology and design.
On the research front, the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics (CAIDE), co-directed by Professor Jeannie Paterson (with her IT engineering colleague, Professor Tim Miller), continues to challenge how we think about AI and machine learning. In May CAIDE launched the Ninian Stephen Law Program: New Legal Thinking for Emerging Technologies, a four-year initiative funded with the generous support of the Menzies Foundation. The program aims to build capacity in the legal profession to address the challenges of emerging technologies and explore the regulation of AI. CAIDE will host the inaugural Ninian Stephen Law Program Oration on these issues in October.
Also in October, CAIDE will host Professor Simon Chesterman, Dean of Law from the National University of Singapore, to speak about his new book We, the Robots?: Regulating Artificial Intelligence and the Limits of the Law. I encourage you to register for this virtual event on 7 October if you are interested. If you wish to know more about CAIDE’s programs please email us or join CAIDE’s mailing list.
Associate Professor Rosemary Langford and Honorary Fellow Dr Andrew Godwin have co-edited a new book, Technology and Corporate Law: How Innovation Shapes Corporate Activity. The book critically examines the interaction of innovation, technology and corporate law, including the impact of AI on corporate governance.
Currently based at the Australian Law Reform Commission, Honorary Fellow Dr Andrew Godwin, with Associate Professor Tatiana Cutts, will also join colleagues at first-ranked Indian law school, National Law School of India University, this week to consider comparative approaches to blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Talking with representatives of the Reserve Bank of India and the Competition Commission of India, the panel discussion will canvass the three dominant approaches to blockchain and cryptocurrency regulation: (1) restrictive regulation (e.g. bans on trading); (2) regulation by analogy (i.e. regulating cryptocurrencies and blockchain/DLT by reference to the existing regulatory framework); and (3) bespoke regulation (i.e. regulation that is specifically tailored to cryptocurrencies, such as the approach in New York and in investment management jurisdictions such as Gibraltar and Malta).
MLS academics are also using machine learning and data science to inform their research. Associate Professor Rebecca Giblin, for example, has analysed almost 100,000 e-books and 400,000 distinct licences to investigate publishers’ pricing and licensing decisions across five countries. The project involved creating new algorithms and using machine learning to understand the relationships between e-book prices, licence terms, and the availability of e-books to libraries.
And as I mentioned earlier this year, the Melbourne School of Government project A Fair Day's Work: Detecting Wage Theft with Data, led by Professor John Howe and Timothy Kariotis, utilises data science to help address the issue of wage theft. The project will design a wage theft prediction tool to enable an assessment of which employees are most at risk of exploitation and underpayment.
While we remain vigilant about intrusive data sets and their potential impacts on rights and freedoms, we also acknowledge the many ways in which the virtual world has kept this fragmented new world connected. I also very much look forward to 2022 and the many ways we will be able to come together then.
Keep safe and keep in touch.
With best wishes, as always
Professor Pip Nicholson
Dean, Melbourne Law School
News and Analysis
Five takeaways from the IPCC Working Group I report
Now that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released the scientific playbook for charting our climate future, we must act immediately, write Professor Jacqueline Peel, Professor Kathryn Bowen and Associate Professor Ben Neville of Melbourne Climate Futures.
Care robots may be a safer option in aged care during pandemics. Dr Simon Coghlan and Gabby Bush from the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics ask how far robot care can go and how far do we want it to go?
Congratulations to Melbourne Law School Laureate Professor Hilary Charlesworth on being nominated for election as a Judge of the International Court of Justice.
This year, Open Day includes a range of online and on campus experiences across August and September 2021. To help you get a feel for our courses and what life is like on campus, we've developed a suite of pre-recorded videos available on demand.
Migration, Refugees & Statelessness Seminar Series
Associate Professor Cathy Vaughn and Dr Adele Murdolo will present on the role of multicultural and settlement services in supporting women experiencing violence. Co-hosted by the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness and Melbourne Social Equity Institute.
Gridlock: reforming Australia’s institutions to unblock policy reform
Professor John Daley presents this lecture outlining the important agenda for lawyers: to define new institutional rules that will improve the chances of policy reform in the public interest.
The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness are pleased to present a special online roundtable to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1961 Convention and discuss its history, evolution and continuing relevance.
The Honourable T F Bathurst AC, 17th Chief Justice of New South Wales, will present on the topic of commercial trusts and examine the adequacy of the current regime in Australia as it concerns the liability of beneficiaries in the event of the insolvency of commercial trusts. This lecture is hosted by Melbourne Law School and supported by Clayton Utz.
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed many serious gaps and flaws in the legal and institutional frameworks (both global and regional) that should prevent, contain and respond to the international spread of diseases. In this lecture Gian Luca Burci, Adjunct Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, will outline some of those blind spots and crucial points that should be addressed as a matter of priority.
Reimagining the relationship and reshaping our institutions
Victorian Barrister Tim Goodwin will speak about how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders must build an intellectual base for reshaping institutions and structures and assert an innovative form of cultural leadership – one both traditional and modern – that remakes Australia’s political, legal, social and cultural landscape.
Professor Kristen Rundle writes that a year after Victoria’s COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry, one significant question remains unanswered: why are governments across Australia so reliant on private contractors in the first place?
Professor Joo-Cheong Tham writes in The Conversation about the circumstances in which Australian employers can pursue mandatory policies on their employees to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
MLS human rights lawyer Azadah Raz Mohammad, who moved to Australia from Afghanistan in 2019, speaks with The Age about the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. She says the Taliban “will respect women’s rights according to Islamic Sharia law, but Islamic Sharia law for them means exactly what they did in the ’90s”.
Dr Erin O’Donnell comments on the proposed changes in the Environmental Omnibus Bill, and how it would weaken the Northern Territory's water allocation plans.