Interview with the Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia conducted on 25 September 2017 at the Family Court of Australia in Melbourne.

Investor-State Dispute Settlement (‘ISDS’) poses significant challenges in respect of tobacco control, public health, human rights, and sustainable development. Two landmark ISDS rulings provide procedural and substantive guidance on the interaction between ISDS and tobacco control. The ISDS action by Philip Morris against Uruguay in respect to graphic health warnings raised important procedural and substantive issues. The ISDS matter between Philip Morris and Australia over the plain packaging of tobacco products highlighted matters in respect of abuse of process. In the Trans-Pacific Partnership, there was a special exclusion for tobacco control measures in respect of ISDS. There was also a larger discussion about the role of general public health exceptions. In the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, there was a debate about the application of ISDS to intellectual property rights. In the European Union, there has been discussion of the creation of an international investment court. In the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, there has even been calls to abolish ISDS clauses altogether from both Republicans and Democrats. This article concludes there is a need to protect tobacco control measures implementing the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control 2013 from further investor and trade challenges.

Foreword to Volume 7, Issue 1.

In two decisions handed down in 2016, the High Court of Australia considered legal measures designed to deal with children in the criminal justice system in an age-appropriate manner. The first case, R v GW, was a prosecution appeal involving the unsworn evidence of a child witness. In this decision, the High Court reviewed the common law and statutory background to unsworn evidence, and gave important guidance on the proper approach to dealing with such evidence in proceedings. The second case was RP v The Queen, which involved the criminal responsibility of a child defendant, and in particular the application of the doli incapax presumption. In this decision, the High Court reviewed the common law background to doli incapax, and gave guidance on its application in criminal proceedings. This commentary discusses both cases and the principles underlying the High Court’s reasoning.

This paper demonstrates that Pakistani sale of goods laws are outdated as they have not been modernised since the 1930s. This paper will only look at buyer’s remedies under the Sale of Goods Act and compare the remedies available under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (‘CISG’) with the ones currently available in Pakistan and, where applicable, the sub-continent. This paper concludes that Pakistan would benefit from a ratification of the CISG as it would enable the country to take advantage of increased attention by China on its resources and economic opportunities.

Before the last state election, the current Victorian government promised from opposition to develop an Environmental Justice Plan if elected. It acknowledged international best practice as a benchmark for such a plan, though it did not recognise the legacy of environmental justice activism and scholarship locally. With the plan still in progress, this article considers the global histories and future directions of environmental justice and a literature-based framework for curating a Victorian plan. It breaks with the common understanding, including that held by government bureaucrats in Victoria, of environmental justice emerging from the United States in the 1980s. The article situates Victoria within that past, the current and future of the concept of environmental justice. Two notable recent legal events affirm the need for, and suggest the shape of, a Victorian environmental justice approach – the housing estate gas leak in outer suburban Melbourne and the Hazelwood coal mine fire in regional Victoria

In late 2016, two well-known Australian organisations joined together to produce a new employee wellness index. The national and international firms, Medibank and Deloitte, respectively, promoted the index as enabling firms to measure the collective wellness and wellbeing of their staff. The two firms were of the view that these concepts should become a mainstream issue for boards and management, and form part of CEO accountability to the board. The case was put that responsibility for wellness should become a key performance indicator against which leadership and management performance could be judged. This paper examines the basis for such a proposal in terms of Australia’s system of corporate and tort law. It reviews the implications of a potential employee right to wellbeing. Would this impact, for example, on the established rights and expectations of employees, both individually and collectively? In addition to examining the consequences for relevant law and regulation, this paper reviews the implications in an international context for Australia’s long-established system of shareholder-primacy corporate governance. In particular, does the proposed wellness index invert the shareholder model, and give too much power to employees?

One cost of China’s remarkable economic growth since 1978 has been levels of corruption among some public officials, significant enough to seriously erode public confidence in government and the Communist Party of China, and even threaten certain areas of domestic economic growth. Anti-corruption strategies seek to locate and repatriate corrupt officials, who have fled overseas as ‘economic fugitives’. In furtherance of these strategies, China has sought to ratify a number of bilateral extradition treaties, including the Treaty on Extradition between Australia and the People’s Republic of China, which Australia signed in 2007, but abandoned its only attempt to ratify in 2017, due to domestic political pressure and strident criticism of its terms. This paper argues that the current treaty impasse cannot be appropriately resolved either by ratifying the treaty in its current form or by requesting amendments that are unlikely to be acceptable to China. It considers several other interim alternatives and assesses their potential to reconcile China’s need to save face and Australia’s need to honour its commitment to the Rule of Law and preserve its international human rights reputation.