Projects

International Law and the Challenge of Populism explores the way we think about the relationship between international law and contemporary forms of populism. This project is particularly interested in examining how contemporary rise of populism may be understood as an effect of international law, and of the practices of institutionalized global ordering over at least the last 70 years.

For more details, see: International Law and the Challenge of Populism (populismandinternationallaw.org)

Australian Research Council
Monash University

The aim of this interdisciplinary project is to investigate the legal and ethical implications of technologies that allow inheritable modifications of the human genome. The use of these technologies in human embryos is fast becoming an international reality, and this project aims to be the first to rigorously examine the implications of this in the Australian context. The intended outcomes of the Project are to clarify the current legal status of inheritable genetic modification technologies in Australia, provide a comprehensive analysis of the ethics of these new technologies, and, building on this, propose a set of recommendations for regulatory reform to guide Australia's response to international scientific and legal developments.

The project collects data on local relocations caused by rising sea levels in Solomon Islands. It tests a conceptual framework for analysing resilience and vulnerability in property systems, including the capacity to provide land for sustainable and inclusive resettlement. While there is emerging international law work on climate change refugees, there is relatively little scholarship on sustainable local relocation for displaced peoples. The project is timely given Solomon Islands government plans for new laws and guidelines on resettlement of communities affected by climate change. The project outcomes will contribute to the literature on law and collective action in response to climate change.

Australian Research Council - Linkage

EBooks have tremendous beneficial potential, particularly for Australians in remote areas and those with impaired mobility or vision. Compared to physical books however, the rights of libraries to acquire and lend them are severely restricted. This project brings together 8 library partners with legal, social and data science researchers to investigate eBook lending practices and understand their social impacts. Building upon that evidence base, the project will identify ways of reforming policy, law, and practice to help libraries fulfil their public interest missions.
This project seeks to cast new light on libraries’ social and cultural roles in the digital age, and enable them to extract more value from existing public investments.

Faculty of Law – Professor Graeme Hodge, Dr Colin Campbell, Ms Tara McCallum, Ms Emille Boulot, Emeritus Professor Arie Freiberg, Adjunct Professor Pamela O'Connor. Other team researchers – Dr Ruth Lane, Faculty of Arts, Professor Alex Gardner, UWA, Ms Dariel De Souza, Maddocks Lawyers, Professor

The Monash Law Faculty has been awarded a major research project on Better Regulatory Frameworks for Water Sensitive Cities. It is part of Monash's Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) which is aiming to revolutionise water management in Australia and overseas. The CRCWSC is a huge undertaking, collaborating with over 80 research, industry and government partners, and with a research budget of over AUD $100 million. With strong industry engagement, it has a vision of making towns and cities more water sensitive, and it oversees some 31 such international research projects.

The project aims to assess current legislative and regulatory frameworks in order to investigate what helps and what hinders the adoption of more water sensitive systems and practices. The research is seeking to identify gaps, barriers and overlaps in our regulatory arrangements for alternative water sources and water sensitive urban design projects and is pursuing more integrated and supportive regimes. The project will also classify and evaluate mechanisms for assessing, allocating, sharing and distributing risks associated with alternative water sources and water sensitive technologies and will develop a new model for risk assessment and risk diversification. It will also provide principles and tools for aligning our legislative, administrative and institutional arrangements with the goal of water sensitive cities.

So far, the Better Regulatory Frameworks for Water Sensitive Cities project has published six reports on Australia's urban water sector. The latest of these reports is a comparative review of urban water regulation across the cities of Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.

Alongside the faculty's research on better regulatory arrangements, Professor Hodge is also overseeing another of the CRC's projects examining Statutory Planning for Water Sensitive Urban Design. This project is being led by Mr Barnaby McIlwraith (Maddocks), with research being undertaken by Ms Linda Choi and Don Williams.

The project will assess the role of statutory planning legislation, regulation and processes in facilitating or constraining the adoption of Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) and identify best practice planning policies and planning legislation to facilitate water resilience in cities