ARC Future Fellowships

Project Title

Purpose beyond profit: Modernising corporations law

Grant Scheme

ARC Future Fellowship

Project Summary

In light of societal expectations that corporations take account of important social, environmental and cultural concerns, this project aims to make recommendations to enable corporations to pursue purposes beyond profit and to clarify the scope of directors’ duties in relation to these concerns. This will fill a significant gap in Australian legal scholarship. Key expected outcomes include empowering corporations to pursue public benefit purposes and reducing complexity and uncertainty for companies and directors. This is expected to provide significant benefits in enabling commercial activity that responds to societal expectations in relation to sustainability, climate change, biodiversity and human rights, as well as commercial benefits.

Commencement Year

2025

Project Title

Intergenerational stories of statelessness: An oral history project

Grant Scheme

ARC Future Fellowship

Project Summary

Statelessness – the status of having no citizenship – is a distinctive political condition that can have long-term, intergenerational effects; but these are currently understudied and largely unknown. This fellowship will investigate and assess the repercussions within the Australian population for descendants of formerly stateless people. Using oral history methodologies and archival research, the project aims to foreground these stories from marginalised and minority communities, thereby offering new knowledge about what citizenship and belonging can mean. Key benefits include empowerment of these communities by providing new opportunities to be heard, and rich information about what citizenship means to diverse groups of Australians.

Commencement Year

2024

Project Title

The Blue Economy and International Law

Grant Scheme

ARC Future Fellowship

Project Summary

States, regional bodies and international financial institutions are seeking new economic opportunities from the sea. Both national and globally-shared ocean resources are marked for the pandemic recovery amidst escalating threats including marine plastics pollution, climate change and overfishing. The Blue Economy promises to deliver growth that aligns with environmental and human welfare goals. This project aims to provide the first detailed analysis of the laws and practices relating to the Blue Economy. It will investigate treaties and other instruments from trade, development, fisheries, climate and environmental organisations. The findings will provide guidance to Australia, the Indo-Pacific region and the international community.

Commencement Year

2023

Project Title

Unravelling Corporate Fraud: re-purposing ancient laws for modern times

Grant Scheme

ARC Future Fellowship

Project Summary

This project aims to reform the ancient laws of common law and equitable fraud that underpin commercial regulation in Australia. These laws are vital to supporting a fair and efficient economy but have failed to evolve to address the rise of corporate actors. Drawing upon a collaborative network of experts, the project intends to develop models of liability that address and overcome the existing ‘state of mind’ and ‘attribution’ hurdles to holding corporations liable for fraudulent conduct. The intended outcome is a road map for comprehensive judicial and legislative law reform, which should offer significant legal, economic and social benefits by supporting more just, effective and efficient regulation of corporate fraud.

Commencement Year

2020

Project Title

Understanding and recognising Indigenous law and legal systems

Grant Scheme

ARC Future Fellowship

Project Summary

This project aims to analyse the written constitutions and laws of Indigenous nations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The Project expects to generate the first comparative study of written Indigenous law. It will generate new knowledge of Indigenous legal concepts that will enable settler and Indigenous officials, scholars and members of the public to better understand and recognise Indigenous law. Expected outcomes of this project include new knowledge that will improve the effectiveness of settler law by ensuring it responds to Indigenous values and aspirations; facilitate the design of Indigenous representative institutions; and assist the negotiation of treaties and other agreements.

Commencement Year

2020

Project Title

Constitutional resilience in South Asian democracies

Grant Scheme

ARC Future Fellowship

Project Summary

As democratic constitutionalism comes under serious challenge not only in new, fragile, democracies but also in older, established, ones, this project seeks to find out whether constitutional design could and should be used to make constitutional democracies more resilient. In particular, it will consider the role that the constitutional accommodation of salient ethnocultural and ideological groups, the autonomy of non-partisan constitutional watchdog institutions and the adaptability of the constitution to changing circumstances could play in securing its resilience against serious threats. It will rely on conceptual and empirical methods, using case studies from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, to answer these questions.

Commencement Year

2017

Project Title

Administrative Justice in China: harnessing the rule of law to deal with citizen complaints against official misconduct

Grant Scheme

ARC Future Fellowship

Project Summary

Ongoing conflicts between citizens and government officials in China pose a serious threat to the country’s social stability. Dealing fairly and efficiently with citizens’ complaints of administrative misconduct is a core component of China’s commitment to good governance and the rule of law. This legal project undertakes the first systematic examination of the three mechanisms underpinning administrative justice in China and their interaction: administrative litigation, administrative review, and letters and visits. It will assess China’s capacity to use law to address chronic abuse of power. It will provide a practical understanding of the changing nature of China’s commitment to the rule of law and the implications for Australia.

Commencement Year

2014

Project Title

International trade and investment law: Recognising complexity, developing coherence

Grant Scheme

ARC Future Fellowship

Project Summary

International trade and investment treaties contain overlapping provisions that have been subject to divergent interpretations by tribunals settling associated disputes. Proliferation of such treaties has created conflicting obligations, significant uncertainty for states and businesses, and an increasing potential for government liability. Through a comparative study of targeted countries, legal concepts and sectors, this project reconceptualises the fields of international trade and investment law in order to maximise their coherence. By providing a framework for reform of existing treaties and negotiation of future treaties, the project offers concrete benefits for government and industry through increased consistency and predictability.

Commencement Year

2014

Project Title

From famine to food security: The role of international law

Grant Scheme

ARC Future Fellowship

Project Summary

This project addresses one of the most pressing questions currently facing the international community: how best to respond to the persistence of food insecurity in the context of a globalised economy. It will analyse the role that law can play in shaping the future regulation of food and agriculture, given the existing factual uncertainty and political controversy about the causes of food insecurity and the existence of fragmented legal regimes that shape the global food system. It will make a major contribution to debates about the role of international institutions in responding to the challenges posed to food security by climate change, population growth, rising energy prices, competition for land use and market volatility.

Commencement Year

2012