There has been a dearth of longitudinal attention to the prosecution of ‘road traffic deaths’ in Australia and worldwide, surprising given more than 50 million people have died or been killed to date. Globally, the ‘road toll’ is estimated at 1.35 million per year. Almost all of those deaths are attributable to some form of human error. A Lesser Species of Homicide examines the shifting nexus where human error, fault, act or omission meet the question of criminal liability. In the first study of its kind in the world, Kerry King examines how parliaments, prosecutors, police and the courts have responded to deaths occasioned by the use of motor vehicles from the mid-twentieth century to the present, including the extent to which the community and judiciary have been prepared to label driving conduct culpable. She explores how our weddedness to the residual notion of ‘accident’, to speed, drink-driving, risk, masculinity and the broader driving culture, have intersected with the tenets of intention, negligence, dangerousness and carelessness to affect judgments about drivers’ conduct. Drawing on hundreds of cases, King carefully traces the construction of offences and case law while observing key emerging themes, including approaches to multiple fatalities, outcomes in cases involving vulnerable road users, the difficulties with prosecuting intoxicated drivers and, most importantly, trends in charging standards and sentencing. For rigour, one Australian jurisdiction, Western Australia, has been chosen as the site of inquiry, yet there is little evidence to suggest that the trends explored herein are peculiar or exceptional. The status quo elsewhere in Australia and overseas appears remarkably similar. A Lesser Species of Homicide seeks to explore how and why deaths on the road have been treated as a species apart.

Featuring international contributions from leading and emerging scholars, this innovative Research Handbook presents a panoramic view of how law sees visual art, and how visual art sees law. It resists the conventional approach to art and law as inherently dissonant – one a discipline preoccupied with rationality, certainty and objectivity; the other a creative enterprise ensconced in the imaginary and inviting multiple, unique and subjective interpretations. Blending these two distinct disciplines, this unique Research Handbook bridges the gap between art and law.

This book provides an overview of disability exceptions to copyright infringement and the international and human rights legal framework for disability rights and exceptions. The focus is on those exceptions as they apply to visual art, while the book presents a comprehensive study of copyright’s disability exceptions per se and the international and human rights law framework in which they are situated. 3D printing now allows people with a visual impairment to experience 3D reproductions of paintings, drawings and photographs through touch. At the same time, the uncertain application of existing disability exceptions to these reproductions may generate concerns about legal risk, hampering sensory art projects and reducing inclusivity and equity in cultural engagement by people with a visual impairment. The work adopts an interdisciplinary approach, with contributions from diverse stakeholders, including persons with disabilities, cultural institutions and the 3D printing industry. The book sketches the scene relating to sensory art projects. Experts in intellectual property, human rights, disability and art law then critically analyse the current legal landscape relating to disability access to works of visual art at both international and regional levels, as well as across a broad representative sample of national jurisdictions, and identify where legal reform is required. This comparative analysis of the laws aims to better inform stakeholders of the applicable legal landscape, the legal risks and opportunities associated with sensory art and the opportunities for reform and best practice guidelines, with the overarching goal of facilitating international harmonisation of the law and enhanced inclusivity.

Some of Australia's most highly regarded legal minds provide a timely examination of both the formation of the country's legal and constitutional foundations and the challenges which confront this framework as it continues to evolve.

Utilizing a comparative examination of case-law from England, Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, this volume provides a comprehensive and systematic study of the law of intervening causation (novus actus interveniens) to present an analysis of this particular judicial limitation of liability device. The work provides a structure from which to formulate core general legal principles and identify the various legal tests utilized by the courts.

The first comprehensive study of the nature and scope of the nationhood power, this book brings a fresh perspective to the scholarship on the powers of the executive branch in Australia. The question of when the Federal Executive Government can act without the authorisation of the Parliament is contested and highly topical in Australia. In recent judicial decisions, Australian courts have suggested that statutory authorisation may not be required where the Federal Executive Government is exercising the nationhood power; that is, the implied executive power derived from the character and status of the Commonwealth as the national government. The Federal Executive Government has relied on this power to implement controversial spending programs, respond to national emergencies and exclude non-citizens from Australia. Together, the chapters in this book analyse and evaluate judicial observations about the operation of the nationhood power in these different contexts and the limits which apply to it. While the focus of this book is on the nationhood power, it also addresses broader issues concerning the relationship between the legislative and executive branches in parliamentary systems of government. This book makes an important contribution to the literature on executive power and will appeal to constitutional lawyers, scholars and practitioners and those who are involved in the administration of government.

Peter Brett (1918–1975), Alice Erh-Soon Tay (1934–2004) and Geoffrey Sawer (1910–1996) are key, yet largely overlooked, members of Australia's first community of legal scholars. This book is a critical study of how their ideas and endeavours contributed to Australia's discipline of law and the first Australian legal theories. It examines how three marginal figures – a Jewish man (Brett), a Chinese woman (Tay), and a war orphan (Sawer) – rose to prominence during a transformative period for Australian legal education and scholarship. Drawing on in-depth interviews with former colleagues and students, extensive archival research, and an appraisal of their contributions to scholarship and teaching, this book explores the three professors' international networks and broader social and historical milieux. Their pivotal leadership roles in law departments at the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, and the Australian National University are also critically assessed. Ranging from local experiences and the concerns of a nascent Australian legal academy to the complex transnational phenomena of legal scholarship and theory, Free Hands and Minds makes a compelling case for contextualising law and legal culture within society. At a time of renewed crisis in legal education and research in the common law world, it also offers a vivid, nuanced and critical account of the enduring liberal foundations of Australia's discipline of law.

This collection examines critically, and with an eye to reform, conceptions and conditions of corporate blameworthiness in law. It draws on legal, moral, regulatory and psychological theory, as well as historical and comparative perspectives. These insights are applied across the spheres of civil, criminal, and international law. The collection also has a deliberate focus on the 'nuts and bolts' of the law: the legal, equitable and statutory principles and rules that operate to establish corporate states of mind, on which responsibility as a matter of daily legal practice commonly depends.The collection therefore engages strongly with scholarly debates. The book also speaks, clearly and cogently, to the judges, regulators, legislators, law reform commissioners, barristers and practitioners who administer and, through their respective roles, incrementally influence the development of the law at the coalface of legal practice.