University of Western Australia Law Review

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• Introduction by Guest Editors
• Rights, reasons, and international norms

  This article focuses on access to environmental justice. In particular, the article focuses on the right to remedy and redress articulated in Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration 1992 and the effective transposition of the principle in domestic law by interrogating three recent decisions from the senior courts in England and Wales, Ireland, and New Zealand concerning the reasons given for environmental decisions. These decisions provide substantive justification for reasoned decision-making so that interested persons are given the human dignity of knowing what was decided and why, for viewing this question from the perspective of a person who did not participate in the proceedings, for avoiding judicial deference on appeal by requiring that original decisions should be objectively reasonable and based on sound evidence, and (as a matter of natural justice) focusing remedial discretion on quashing defective decisions

• Rights of nature as a response to the Anthropocene
• Disaster Risk Reduction, Vulnerability and the Law: A Case for Including Animals

  The 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires revealed animals' profound vulnerability to natural hazards. Since then, multiple Australian states have introduced planning instruments to improve outcomes for animals in disasters. While a welcome trend, these instruments primarily focus on the acute phases of emergency preparedness and response. However, the disaster management cycle is broader than this, commencing with prevention and mitigation. Recognising that action early in the cycle is crucial, international instruments emphasise pre-emptive disaster risk reduction measures. This article contends that animals' vulnerability to disasters, as affirmed in the 2019-2020 Australian Bushfires, necessitates measures targeted at reducing their disaster risk

• Law, Interdisciplinarity and 'Wicked' Problems

  This article argues that law, as a discipline, and regulation can contribute to the resolution of 'wicked' problems, such as agricultural diffuse source pollution, but that it necessitates an integration of other disciplines. While interdisciplinarity is not foreign to law, it, largely, fails to engage with theoretical frameworks and methodology to facilitate and ensure the integrity of such research

• Statues and status: The legal geography of landscape values and belonging

  This article concerns a conflict over a statue, built in the Margaret River wine region, in contravention of the Planning and Development Act 2005 (WA). The statue was granted retrospective approval by the state tribunal. However, throughout and following the controversy, the legal geographies of the statue and the landscape became contested. It was framed by disagreement about the appropriateness of the statue, and the values and role of community members in defining the landscape

• The legal geographies of the troposphere

  Legal geographies of space, time and the material world have occupied significant attention from scholars engaged in legal geography endeavours. Australia and the Asia-Pacific region's legal geography scholarship has shown a predisposition towards engagement with environmental issues and the concomitant materialities. Increasingly, there is recognition that these materialities are not always visible to the human eye, and one such materiality that has to date been overlooked is that of the troposphere. As a previously invisibilised space most recently made visible due to the impacts of a climate-changed world - namely, bushfire-induced smoke haze - it is argued that the troposphere is the next frontier for human and more-than human activity and one that warrants explicit theoretical and empirical scholarly engagement. In addition, explicit engagement at the law-geography nexus is essential for forward-looking environmentally concerned scholarship, for which the relationship between environmental issues and materiality is now of fundamental importance to law and to societies, exacerbated by our local, national and global experiences of a world affected by climate change. Exploring this the troposphere through the lens of legal geography enables a grounded understanding of the theoretical challenges and opportunities within this increasingly visibilised space of human activity and environmental impact. In light of the role of property rights in the troposphere, this paper examines tropospheric incursions in the context of volumetric urbanism to illustrate the utility of legal geography theory, and to illustrate the legal and social importance of an empirically under-explored space

• Opportunities for 'next generation' climate litigation in Western Australia

  An international wave of novel or "next generation" climate litigation is emerging, which embraces innovative legal arguments to respond to climate change through the courts. This article analyses future prospects for novel climate change litigation in Western Australia, focusing on claims in tort law and corporate law. It highlights key issues and opportunities associated with these claims in Western Australia, and how they may be overcome with the assistance of climate attribution science

• Addressing carbon and climate change through environmental impact assessment: A case study of Western Australian LNG and the 'Burrup Hub' project

  Where specific climate change policy and legal frameworks are lacking, environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes are being relied upon to understand and address climate impacts of major projects. This paper examines the adequacy and outcomes of State and Commonwealth EIA processes as applied to the rapidly expanding liquified natural gas (LNG) industry and the "Burrup Hub" development. It offers practical and legal perspectives on how EIA can (and must) better address carbon and climate change

• Germany's Climate Change Agenda: A Critical Overview

  Germany's economy is the fourth-largest economy behind the US, China, and Japan, with a strong industrial base and many energy-intensive industries. Germany has been and continues to be a significant emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG). Germany has also taken on a leadership role in supporting emission reductions internationally, e.g., within the UNFCCC framework and the European Union (EU), which plays a significant role both internationally and domestically. Germany's political intentions and ambitious political goals rested on a somewhat fragmented and relatively thin legal foundation. This changed towards the end of 2019 with the passage of the Federal Climate Change Act (FCCA), which entered into force in December 2019. This framework act spells out the long-term goal of GHG-neutrality by 2050 and a 55% GHG reduction target by 2030. The FCAA must be read in conjunction with the Climate Action Plan 2050 and the Climate Protection Program 2030, which can be regarded as planning tools. Additional challenges arise from the fact that Germany has decided to phase out coal as a fuel for energy generation over the coming two decades and to take all existing nuclear power plants offthe gridin the veryshort term. The paper attempts to explain and critically analyze Germany's legal and political framework dealing with climate change with an emphasis on the difficulties of very long-term policy planning in the volatile political and economic environment with often competing interests

Featured documents

• Criminal Prosecutions in Western Australia: A View from the Nineteenth Century

  Many scholars have analysed the differences between criminal trials in common and civil law systems. The adversarial trial in England, Australia and elsewhere provides a contrast with the inquisitorial process found in continental Europe and other civil law countries. Legal history adds another...

• It's time exemplary damages were part of the judicial armory in contract

  This article challenges the traditional approach that exemplary damages are unavailable for breach of contract. Given the exceptional nature and infrequent use of the remedy, the principles relating to exemplary damages are often misunderstood. A survey of key arguments in support of the...

• London & New Mashonaland Exploration Co Ltd v New Mashonaland Exploration Co Ltd: Is It Authority That Directors Can Compete with the Company?

  There is confusion concerning the ability of directors to compete with the company. There is uncertainty about whether a different rule or a relaxed application of the conflict rule is applied to directors competing with the company in contrast to other fiduciaries, such as trustees personally...

• Property rights to our bodies and their products

  This article, written for Peter Johnston, examines issues concerning property rights to our bodies and their products. The questions of principle involved in this area have attracted vast debate and discussion amongst lawyers for two millenia. The underlying questions of legal principle should not...

• The Problem with Amann: Would an Agreement-Centred Approach to Remoteness Benefit Australian Jurisprudence?

  The agreement-centred approach to assessing damages for breach of contract formulated by Lord Hoffmann in The Achilleas dovetails neatly with the modern approach to contractual interpretation. In this paper, I will seek to analyse and expose what I respectfully submit are shortcomings in the joint...

• Can Promissory Estoppel be an Independent Source of Rights?

  This article addresses persistent uncertainty in relation to the question, 'Can promissory estoppel be an independent source of rights under Australian law?' A split has developed between intermediate courts of appeals in some jurisdictions on this question. This article considers the operation of...

• Extradition from A to Z: Assange, Zentai and the Challenge of Interpreting International Obligation

  One of Professor Peter Johnston’s main areas of expertise was the law of extradition. Notably, he appeared before the High Court of Australia in the Zentai case, concerning the request for extradition of an alleged war criminal. His interest in the law of extradition was, furthermore, wideranging...

• Ministerial Advisers and the Australian Constitution

  Ministerial advisers are relatively new institutional actors within the Commonwealth Executive. Ministerial advisers were not envisaged at federation and pose a challenge to constitutional theory, which largely focuses on the position of public servants and Ministers. This article analyses the...

• Claims for the value of the lost contractual performance

  It is often said that contractual damages awards compensate the promisee for loss caused by breach. Statements like this are indeterminate because they leave unspecified whether such awards aim merely to make good some of the eventual deterioration in the promisee's balance sheet position...

• Set up to fail? Examining Australian parole compliance laws through a therapeutic jurisprudence lens

  With growing prisoner and parole numbers, Australia is demonstrably failing to reduce recidivism and facilitate desistance from crime. This paper examines Australia's parole compliance regime through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence ('TJ'), which we argue provides a valuable perspective for...