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The latest issue of the Australian Law Journal (Volume 92 Part 4) contains the following material:

CURRENT ISSUES – Editor: Justice François Kunc

  • Vale Robert “Bob” Baxt AO
  • The Human Factor
  • Unity in the High Court
  • National Plan to Address Elder Abuse
  • The Tragedy and Challenge of Radicalisation
  • Appeals From Nauru Come to an End
  • New Specialist Sections

CONVEYANCING AND PROPERTY – Editors: Robert Angyal SC and Brendan Edgeworth

  • Creation of Estates for Services: New Zealand Style
  • Relevance to Australia?

THE LEGAL OBSERVER – Editor: Michael Pelly

  • The Regrettable Secrecy on Nauru Appeals

FAMILY LAW – Editor: Richard Ingleby

  • Financial Agreement Anomalies between Western and Eastern Australia

FROM THE LAW SCHOOLS – Editor: Professor Michael Coper

  • What is the Future of Australian Legal Education?

ADMIRALTY AND MARITIME – Editor: Dr Damien J Cremean

  • Reforming Australia’s Admiralty Jurisdiction

RECENT CASES – Editor: Ruth C A Higgins SC

  • Contracts: Construction – “True Rule” In Codelfa Construction v State Rail Authority (NSW) – No Requirement of Ambiguity Before Regard is had to Surrounding Circumstances

Articles

What’s Equity got to do with the Environment? – Justice Brian J Preston

The development of the environment benefits some, burdens others and bypasses many. The distribution of the benefits and burdens of developing the environment raises issues of equity. The notion of equity concerns evenness, fairness and justice. The members of the community of justice comprise people of the present generation, people of future generations and non-human nature, present and future. Extending equity to these members involves intragenerational equity, intergenerational equity and interspecies equity. These three principles of equity fix not only the process of decision making concerning development of the environment but also the results of decision making. The results include maintaining a healthy, diverse and productive environment, now and in the future. The three principles of equity call for distributive justice, which is to be achieved by according procedural justice: a fair result reached by a fair process. This is what equity has to do with the environment.

Regulating Humanitarian Assistance by Australian Charities: Legal Tools to Deter Funding of Terrorism Abroad – Gregory Rose

What are the obligations and risks in Australian law confronting the managers of charitable funds disbursed overseas to conflict zones where funds may be diverted into political violence? The 2016 allegations against World Vision Australia for funding HAMAS are described here as a case study of applicable Australian laws. Apparent gaps in the administrative, civil and criminal regulatory framework are identified and are contrasted with approaches in other common law jurisdictions: Canada, England and Wales, and the United States. Based upon these comparisons, recommendations are made to address perceived defects in the regulatory framework to counter financing of terrorism abroad by Australian not-for-profit organisations.

The Liability Blind Spot: Civil Liability’s Blurred Vision of Conditionally Automated Vehicles – Ella Pyman

In the next five to 10 years, experts predict that conditionally automated vehicles will be commercially introduced. At this level of automation, the system has total control of the vehicle in defined driving environments. The motorist, as a technical matter, will not be required to supervise the system’s functioning when the technology is engaged. The diminished role of the human motorist in conditionally automated vehicles poses a qualitative challenge to the existing liability framework. This article contends that these technical advancements will significantly narrow the motorist’s legal duty to drive carefully and cause a corresponding expansion of the developer’s duties. A lacuna however will emerge where similar injuries inflicted by a driver in sole control will no longer be compensated when they are inflicted by an automated vehicle. This creates a liability blind spot: a blurred vision of how a conditionally automated vehicle claim would be resolved.

BOOK REVIEWS – Editor: Angelina Gomez

  • Clarity for Lawyers: Effective Legal Language (3rd ed), by Mark Adler and Daphne Perry
  • Seeing Through Legalese: More Essays on Plain Language, by Joseph Kimble
  • Re-interpreting Blackstone’s Commentaries: A Seminal Text in National and International Contexts, by Wilfrid Prest (ed)
  • The Tasmanian Dam Case 30 Years On: An Enduring Legacy, by Michael Coper, Heather Roberts and James Stellios (eds)

OBITUARY

  • Robert Baxt

For the PDF version of the table of contents, click here: ALJ Vol 92 No 4 Contents.

Click here to access this Part on Westlaw AU

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