Transnational Criminal Law Group 2022
By Professor Liz Campbell
In 2022 the Transnational Criminal Law Group continued the Monash Law's contemporary, comparative scholarship on criminal law, strengthening Monash’s long-standing expertise in a domestic and global sense.
Corporate criminal liability
The Group’s Network of Excellence on Corporate Accountability is on-going, enabling impactful research on corporate criminal liability and responses to corporate wrongdoing.
Professor Jonathan Clough and Dr Natalia Antolak-Saper are working on sentencing outcomes and the impacts on victims in this sphere, while Professor Liz Campbell is studying corporations’ use of client legal privilege, and Dr Jo Kyriakakis examines the international law aspects of corporate criminal liability.
Cybercrime and technology
The Group maintains its focus on cybercrime, and the intersection between the criminal law and technology/AI.
Professor Jonathan Clough is a key researcher in a project funded by the Australian Research Council: Understanding and responding to online child sexual exploitation offenders. This involves as partners Victoria Police, the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health, the Australian Institute of Criminology and the Department of Justice and Community Safety (Victoria).
Dr Jacqui Horan continues her work on the jury and virtual courts, and provided insightful media comments throughout the year.
Professor Liz Campbell remains on the UK government's Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group and is working on the comparative regulation of face recognition technology and other biometric forms of evidence.
International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law
A number of Group members were involved in the 2022 conference of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law, an international non-governmental association of judges, legislators, lawyers, academics, governmental officials, police and corrections professionals.
Professor Jonathan Clough presented on “Sentencing of Online Child Sexual Exploitation Offences” and Dr Natalia Antolak-Saper on “Relevance of Childhood Trauma to Sentencing” in an extensive online session moderated by Professor Liz Campbell.
The role of the media in criminal justice policy
Dr Natalia Antolak-Saper launched her book The Role of the Media in Criminal Justice Policy: Prisons, Populism and the Press in October 2022. This included a panel discussion with Professor the Hon Marilyn Warren AC QC (former Chief Justice of Victoria) and Emeritus Professor Arie Freiberg AM (Chair of the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council, 2004-2022), chaired by Professor Liz Campbell.
Disability and the criminal justice system
Following the release of her co-edited book Neurodisability and the Criminal Justice System, Comparative and Therapeutic Responses in 2021, Associate Professor Gaye Lansdell has continued her interdisciplinary research with a grant from the Australian Institute of Criminology. This culminated in a co-authored report: Young People with an Acquired Brain Injury: preventing entrenchment in the criminal justice system (June 2022).
International criminal law
Dr Monique Cormier, who joined Monash Law as Senior Lecturer, researches in the field of international criminal law, with a focus on jurisdiction and immunities. This year she has provided commentary on jurisdictional issues in relation to the International Criminal Court's investigation into war crimes committed in Ukraine, with short pieces published in the Monash Lens and 360info.
Unrepresented accused
Another current area of research focus for the Group is on unrepresented accused in criminal matters. After publishing a report under the auspices of the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration in 2021, Dr Natalia Antolak-Saper and Professor Jonathan Clough extend their work on Fair Trial Rights in Contested Matters. In a cognate area, Dr Stephen Gray continued his work on police and criminal liability, and the impact on vulnerable people of policing practices.
Building on this range of work and expertise, the Transnational Criminal Law Group will host quarterly panel discussions on the most pressing issues in criminal law throughout 2023.