Law School: Events

JSI Seminar: Flourishing in the Anthropocene
2022-08-11 18:00 - 19:30 (Australia/Sydney) | Sydney Law School, Law Lounge, Level 1, New Law Building Annex (F10A)
JSI Seminar: Flourishing in the Anthropocene
Speaker: Associate Professor Nicole Graham, Sydney Law School
Progressive property theory presents a recent corrective to atomistic theories that isolate property interests from the network of relations and obligations arising from the sociality of organised human society. The â€˜social obligation norm’ that underpins progressive property theory stretches back to Aristotle’s philosophy of eudemonia (â€˜human flourishing’ or â€˜living well’) written in the 4th Century BC. But property is not timeless; the world has changed. The rise of global greenhouse gas emissions above pre-industrial levels is rapidly transforming the climate of the planet – presenting an existential crisis on a scale far greater than the individual, society, and species. For millennia, Western theories of property, including progressive property, have been dominated by anthropocentric notions of law and land. However, the concept of community, central to progressive property theory, foregrounds and prioritises both materiality and relationality, making possible a more viable theory of human-earth relations for the 21st Century. The arrival of the Anthropocene calls for a planetary understanding of â€˜community’ that encompasses its disowned human and more-than-human members, whose labour in Capital’s shadow lands provide the conditions of modern Western proprietorship. â€˜Living well’ through the 21st century will involve reframing social obligation as existential imperative to model a viable property regime.
About the speaker:
Dr Nicole Graham is an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney Law School. She teaches and researches in the fields of property law and theory, and legal geography. Nicole has written on the relationship between law, environment and culture with a particular focus on property rights, natural resource regulation and the concept of place.

Thursday 11 August 2022, 6-7.30pmÂ AEST
This event is being held an online and in-person at Sydney Law School. Please indicate your viewing preference when registering.

CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is hosted by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

JSI Seminar: The Conscience of Trust
2022-08-18 18:00 - 19:30 | Sydney Law School, Law Lounge, Level 1, New Law Building Annex (F10A)
JSI Seminar: The Conscience of Trust
Speaker: Professor Irit Samet, King’s College London
At the heart of the modern trust lies a glaring paradox: how has a legal institution that is repeatedly referred to by the courts as rooted in a duty of conscience become infamous for helping individuals to achieve goals that are patently unconscionable?
With every brazen leak of documents from offshore jurisdictions and the ensuing investigation into the financial affairs of the super affluent, it becomes clear that the trust is now a widely used vehicle for evading duties owed by property owners to creditors, dependants and the community. A dangerous trend of importing practices and trust structures from offshore jurisdictions to established onshore trust regimes threatens to further accelerate the corrosion in the reputation of the trust. Any comprehensive solution for the acute legitimacy problem faced by the trust must be multi-systemic.
In this paper, I focus on one aspect of it: the normative basis for the trust obligation. Looking at the conceptual edifice that underlies the trustee’s obligations, the paper argues that what worked for the problems that afflicted traditional trust relationship may not be suitable when facing the challenges of modern trusts. However, the way in which the concept of â€˜conscience’ functions in this area of the law can be useful for reformers who wish to protect (what is left of) the good name of trusts. In particular, it can help us build the necessary moral authority for recent judicial interventions that aim to undo the damage of reckless offshore trust forms. I look into the way the courts of equity lift the concept of conscience from moral discourse and what this means for the moral standing of beneficiaries to make claims on the basis of trusts that are designed to create â€˜orphan property’.
About the speaker:
Irit Samet is a Professor in the Dickson Poon School of Law, which she joined in 2008. She was previously a Lecturer in Law at Mansfield College, Oxford (2006-2007), and a lecturer at the University of Essex (2008). She read law and philosophy in Israel and completed her doctorate at Oxford. Her main research interests lie in the Law of Equity, Property Law, and the theory of private law. She published papers on these subjects in leading journals (like OJLS, MLR), and her book on the theory of Equity Law was published by OUP in 2018. She is a course convener for the undergraduate module of Equity and Trusts, and teaches philosophy of property law as an option B part of the Jurisprudence course, and research seminars in property law.

Thursday 18 August 2022, 6-7.30pmÂ AEST
This event is being held an online and in-person at Sydney Law School. Please indicate your viewing preference when registering.

CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is hosted by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

JSI Seminar: Jealousy of trade, from the Scottish Enlightenment to neoliberalism
2022-08-25 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: Jealousy of trade, from the Scottish Enlightenment to neoliberalism
Speaker: Associate Professor Jessica Whyte, UNSW
In this talk, I trace the Scottish Enlightenment debates about what David Hume termed â€œjealousy of tradeâ€â€”that is, the transformation of international commerce into a political concern of states and a cause of international conflict. I revisit these debates – in a context marked by new trade wars and military conflicts within a highly integrated global economy – in order to propose a new understanding ofÂ neoliberalism. Against the dominant understanding of neoliberalism as primarily an economic ideology, I argue that early neoliberals (notably Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises) drew from the Scottish Enlightenment to portray market competition as the necessary condition not of economic efficiency but of social and international peace. Against laissez-faire, they portrayed the market (and peace) as a legal order, not a natural order. In this vein, they also pioneered new forms of economic coercion to restrict the options of democratic polities, and to pacify market societies.
About the speaker:
Jessica Whyte is Scientia Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales with a cross-appointment in the Faculty of Law. Her work integrates political philosophy, intellectual history and political economy to analyse contemporary forms of sovereignty, human rights, humanitarianism and militarism. She is the author ofÂ Catastrophe and Redemption: The Political Thought of Giorgio Agamben, (SUNY 2013) andÂ The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of NeoliberalismÂ (Verso, 2019).

Thursday 25 August 2022, 6-7.30pmÂ AEST
This event is being held an online and in-person at Sydney Law School. Please indicate your viewing preference when registering.

CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is hosted by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

JSI Seminar: Children, families, and immigration enforcement
2022-09-15 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: Children, families, and immigration enforcement
Speaker: Associate Professor Matthew Lister, Bond University
What might otherwise seem like straight-forward instances of immigration enforcement can give rise to both practical and moral complications when the objects of the enforcement measures are children and/or have close family ties to citizens or legal permanent residents. In the case of children, we may doubt whether they can be held morally responsible for immigration violations and may also face complicated questions about the best interest of the children.
When an otherwise removable non-citizen has close family ties to a citizen or permanent resident, we may worry that removal will both impose disproportionate harms on the one removed and will also cause unacceptable harms on, and violate the rights of, citizens or permanent residents.
In this seminar, Matthew Lister will try to isolate the issues, both practical and moral, and look at what sorts of limits they place on otherwise acceptable instances of immigration enforcement.
About the speaker:
Matthew Lister is an Associate Professor at Bond University. He is a legal and political philosopher as well as a lawyer who works on normative issues relating to immigration and refugee law, international law, including international economic law and regulation, workplace and employment law, criminal law, and other issues in jurisprudence and political philosophy.

Thursday 15 September 2022, 6-7.30pm AEST
This event is being held an online and in-person at Sydney Law School. Please indicate your viewing preference when registering.

CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is hosted by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

JSI Seminar: Lawmativity
2022-11-24 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: Lawmativity
Hybrid event

Explaining the normativity of law – how it guides action by giving reasons – is one of the central questions of general jurisprudence. It is also one of the topics on which there is least agreement. In the first half of the talk, Alex Horne offers a diagnosis as to why. Basically: the desiderata for a genuine and mutually satisfactory solution to the problem of law’s normativity cannot all be satisfied by one theory. In the second half of the talk, he articulates his partial solution to the problem and explains (i) which desiderata we should abandon and (ii) why the best – and complete – account of law’s normativity is therefore piecemeal.
About the speaker:
Alex Horne is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge. He works on various topics in moral psychology, ethics, political philosophy, and jurisprudence.

Thursday 24 November 2022, 6-7.30pmÂ AEDT
This event is being held an online and in-person at Sydney Law School. Please indicate your viewing preference when registering.

CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is hosted by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

Julius Stone Address: The Legal Experience of Injustice
2022-12-08 18:00 - 19:30 | Camperdown Campus – venue to be confirmed
Julius Stone Address: The Legal Experience of Injustice
In-person event
InÂ The Faces of Injustice, Judith Shklar criticizes the â€˜normal model’ of justice which views injustice as â€˜a prelude to or a rejection and breakdown of justice, as if injustice were a surprising abnormality’. Her central insight is that â€˜the real realm of injustice â€¦ does not stand outside of the gates of even the best known of states. Most injustices occur continuously within the framework of an established polity with an operative system of law in normal times.’ She also offers a second, Hobbesian insight: â€˜[w]ithout juridical institutions and the beliefs that support them, there can be no decent, just, or stable social relations, but only anxiety, mutual mistrust, and insecurity’. Since juridical institutions and the beliefs that support them may be necessary for justice, but insufficient to prevent injustice, the insights are perfectly consistent as a matter of abstract logic.
My question is consistency as a matter of a different logic, the logic of legal experience for those in the â€˜jural community’, the community of persons subject to law. I argue that such experience shows that certain kinds of injustice are inconsistent with an operative system of law since they create tensions within the jural community that it must resolve to remain operative. I rely on two of Shklar’s examples, the Nazi state and slavery in USA, and two she did not mention, the apartheid state and the â€˜parallel state’ of Israel and the Occupied Territories, to show how systems of law offer a legal resource that makes resistance to certain kinds of injustice possible and thus the practice of human rights lawyering. However, at the same time we see that all involved in maintaining an operative system of law, including human rights lawyers and their clients, participate in legitimizing the system. Here I suggest that Shklar underestimated the ability of the legal theories of three important exemplars of the normal model of justice, H.L.A. Hart, Lon Fuller and Ronald Dworkin, to illuminate different aspects of the experience of injustice.
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Thursday 8 December, 6-7.30pm
CPD points =1.5
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About the speaker
Professor David Dyzenhaus
David Dyzenhaus is a professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Toronto, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He holds the Albert Abel Chair of Law and was appointed in 2015 to the rank of University Professor. He has taught in South Africa, England, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, Hungary, Mexico and the USA. He holds a doctorate from Oxford University and law and undergraduate degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. In 2002, he was the Law Foundation Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Law, University of Auckland. In 2005-06 he was Herbert Smith Visiting Professor in the Cambridge Law Faculty and a Senior Scholar of Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 2014-15, he was the Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor in Legal Science in Cambridge. In 2016-17, he was a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. In 2020-21, he was a Guggenheim Fellow and a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.
Professor Dyzenhaus is the author ofÂ Hard Cases in Wicked Legal Systems: South African Law in the Perspective of Legal PhilosophyÂ (now in its second edition),Â Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen, and Hermann Heller in Weimar,Â andÂ Judging the Judges, Judging Ourselves: Truth, Reconciliation and the Apartheid Legal Order. He has edited and co-edited several collections of essays. In 2004 he gave the JC Smuts Memorial Lectures to the Faculty of Law, Cambridge University. These were published by Cambridge University Press in 2006 asÂ The Constitution of Law: Legality in a Time of Emergency. He is editor of the University of Toronto Law Journal and co-editor of the series Cambridge Studies in Constitutional Law. His most recent book isÂ The Long Arc of Legality: Hobbes, Kelsen, HartÂ (Cambridge, 2022).

Contact
Please contact Dr Kevin Walton (kevin.walton@sydney.edu.au) with enquiries about the conference.

This event is hosted by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.
The Julius Stone Address is generously sponsored by the Educational Heritage Foundation. It is named to commemorate the life and work of Professor Julius Stone, Australia’s foremost legal philosopher and for many years Challis Professor of International Law and Jurisprudence at The University of Sydney.

JSI Seminar: Politics all the way down? A qualified defence of critical legal theory
2023-04-20 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: Politics all the way down? A qualified defence of critical legal theory
In-person event

In this talk, Dr Ntina Tzouvala sets out to defend the potential for legal theory of what Edward Said called â€˜contrapuntal reading’, Louis Althusser (drawing from Jacques Lacan) described as â€˜symptomatic read-ing’, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick denounced as â€˜paranoid reading’. Albeit different in their origins and orientation, all three approaches demand that we take law seriously, but not literally. They suggest that legal texts neither are nor can be made complete and coherent and they presume that nobody is in full control of those text, perhaps least of all their authors.
Dr Tzouvala argues that this â€˜hermeneutics of suspicion’ (Ricoeur, 1970) establishes the specificity of (critical) legal theory as opposed to both doctrinal work that strives for consistency and to a particular form of legal history and legal biography that place the conscious plans, desires and ideas of the individual subject at the centre of the law. Importantly, this approach does not simply defer to ‘politics’ for the validity for its arguments but posits that symptomatic reading is the only way to establish rigorous knowledge of the law as an autonomous subject.
About the speaker:
Dr Ntina Tzouvala
Dr Ntina Tzouvala’s work focuses on the political economy, history and theory of international law. She is especially interested in historical materialism, deconstruction, feminist and queer legal theory. Her first monograph,Â Capitalism as Civilisation: A History of International Law,Â was published by Cambridge University Press in late 2020. Her book was awarded the 2022 ASIL Certificate of Merit for a preeminent contribution to creative scholarship and the Australian Legal Research Award (ALRA) in the book category. In addition, it was shortlisted for the Deutscher Prize and was awarded a honourable mention in the context of the 2021 Sussex Prize in International Theory. Her work has also appeared in leading journals, including the European Journal of International Law, the Leiden Journal of International Law and the Journal of International Economic Law.
Between 2019 and 2021 Ntina was a founding member of the editorial collective of the Third World Approaches to International Law Review. In early 2020, she was appointed Senior Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.

Thursday 20 April 2023, 6-7.30pmÂ AEDT
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus

CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is co-hosted by the Julius Stone Institute of Jurisprudence and the Sydney Centre for International Law at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

JSI Seminar: The life of international law is not logic but experience
2023-05-11 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: The life of international law is not logic but experience
In-person event

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously maintained that â€œthe life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.â€ Holmes statement suggests an antecedent question: what is the life of the law? This essay construes this question ontologically. What gives law life? What animates it, and in so doing warrants the claim that law contributes to the production of social order in a particular community?
The answer, I contend, is that law lives, or exists, only in those societies where law rules, and law rules only when the exercise of political power is conducted under the supervision of lawyers, agents for whom realizing the rule of law is a calling or vocation. Perhaps surprisingly, I contend that the most prominent proponent of this account of law in the field of international law and legal theory is Martti Koskenniemi. While he generally eschews talk of government in accordance with the rule of law in favor of â€œa culture of formalismâ€ and â€œconstitutionalism as a mindset,â€ I demonstrate that Koskenniemi defends the same conception of law that Lon Fuller and Ronald Dworkin do. This conception identifies law not with rules or institutions but with a particular approach to the exercise of political power, one premised on actors reciprocal regard for one another as autonomous and responsible agents.
Read the paper here.
About the speaker:
David Lefkowitz
David Lefkowitz is Professor of Philosophy and the founding Coordinator of the Program in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law (PPEL) at the University of Richmond (US). His scholarship focuses largely on conceptual and normative questions in international law, and the morality of obedience and disobedience to law. He is the author of Philosophy and International Law: A Critical Introduction (CUP 2020), as well as more than forty journal articles and book chapters. Lefkowitz has held research fellowships at Princeton University, the U.S. Naval Academy, and National University of Singapore, and served as a visiting research scholar at Pompeu Fabra University.

Thursday 11 May 2023, 6-7.30pmÂ AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is co-hosted by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ and theÂ Sydney Centre for International LawÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

JSI Seminar: Crowdsourcing and artificial intelligence in constitutional courts
2023-05-23 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: Crowdsourcing and artificial intelligence in constitutional courts
In-person event
In Judgment SU-151/2020 the Constitutional Court of Colombia rendered its decision on a constitutional complaint of a group of journalists. They claim that in certain criminal cases concerning possible corruption by government officials, prosecutors and judges were unsatisfyingly prohibiting the press to attend public criminal law hearings. The petitioners claimed that judges and prosecutors use to limit the constitutional right to free press outside of those exceptions and by means of disproportionate decisions.
The Court made an open call to journalists, prosecutors, judges, and other interested parties to send short videos or writings with relevant information or their views concerning the issue at hand. The Court received 37 videos and writings. All materials were posted online, and people wrote comments on them. The Court was able to process those materials, which reveal that there was indeed and unconstitutional practice. However, the Court could have never processed that information, had it received hundreds or thousands of pieces of information.
This example illustrates how crowdsourcing can assist constitutional courts to overcome their epistemic deficiencies for solving constitutional cases. Those deficiencies can relate to factual or normative matters. Nevertheless, this advantage does not come without risks. Judicial crowdsourcing can be meaningless if it is misused as a mechanism of democratic window-dressing. This risk instantiates if, as it may happen with other mechanisms of digital democracy, it is entirely shaped and controlled by representatives of â€œexisting entrenched social and economic interestsâ€ or if constitutional procedural laws include an empowerment for judges to disregard or supersede outcomes of crowdsourcing processes without justification. Furthermore, power brokers can manipulate crowdsourcing mechanisms. Additionally, judicial crowdsourcing can be trivialized if citizens’ suggestions do not elicit deliberation among judges and remain only as an expression lacking any kind of impact. Finally, constitutional courts can use artificial intelligence to analyse big amounts of information that stake-holders submit in the crowdsourcing process. The use of artificial intelligence for those purposes also raises specific concerns of algocratia, opacity, and algorithmic discrimination.
Within the context, the aim of this presentation is to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the use of crowdsourcing and artificial intelligence by Constitutional Courts in complex cases of constitutional adjudication.
About the speaker:
Carlos Bernal
Carlos Bernal is Commissioner of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. He is professor of law at the University of Dayton (Ohio, USA) and Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia). Between 2017 and 2020, he was Justice at the Colombian Constitutional Court. His qualifications include a LL.B. from the University Externado of Colombia (BogotÃ¡ – Colombia) (1996), a S.J.D. from the University of Salamanca (Spain) (2001), and a M.A. (2008) and a Ph.D. in Philosophy (2011) from the University of Florida (U.S.A).
Prof. Bernal’s research focuses on constitutional rights’ interpretation, comparative constitutional change, general jurisprudence -in particular, on the intersection between social ontology and legal theory-, and the philosophical foundations of tort law. His work has been published in high-ranked peer-reviewed journals, books and edited collections in English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Russian.

Tuesday 23 May 2023, 6-7.30pmÂ AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is hosted by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

JSI Seminar | Legalizing Assisted Dying: Are We On A Slippery Slope To Involuntary Euthanasia?
2023-06-15 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: Legalizing Assisted Dying: Are We On A Slippery Slope To Involuntary Euthanasia?
In-person event

On 28 November 2023, theÂ Voluntary Assisted Dying ActÂ will come into effect in NSW. The Act allows ill persons having decision-making capacity, acting voluntary, and with less than six months to live (12 months in the case of a neurogenerative illness) to request a prescription of a lethal substance to end intolerable suffering. If the medical practitioners responsible for the assessment of the request confirm that the eligibility conditions are satisfied, the patient may decide to self-administer the lethal substance or that the substance is to be administered to the patient by a doctor. TheÂ Voluntary Assisted Dying ActÂ was eventually approved on 19 May 2022 after an exhausting and hard-fought parliamentary debate.
One of the main reasons justifying the opposition to the bill was provided by a slippery slope argument: The legalization of assisted dying would be a first and decisive step towards the gradual acceptance by public opinion, medical professions, and political decision-makers of the medical killing of people unable to consent. Given that this outcome is morally disgraceful, assisted dying should not be permitted in the first place. Slippery slope arguments are popular in a wide range of debates across bioethics, law, and public policy, and are still extensively used to prevent the legalization of assisted dying in countries such as the UK, Germany and Italy. Besides, they are widely employed to prevent policymakers from extending the right to assisted dying to new categories of persons in those jurisdictions where that right is already recognized.
However, it is highly disputed whether arguments of this sort are able to support their conclusions or should rather be dismissed because ill-grounded. In this seminar I will try to answer this question. To do that, I will first show that various versions of the slippery slope arguments are actually present in the debate on assisted dying. I will then claim that the only version of the argument that is not ill-grounded supports the opposite conclusion, namely that the non-recognition of the right to assisted dying may be a first step on the slippery slope to unvoluntary euthanasia in many legal systems.
About the speaker:
Damiano Canale
Damiano Canale is Professor of Philosophy of Law and Critical Thinking at Bocconi University, Milan (Italy). His scholarship mainly focuses on legal reasoning and legal interpretation, the methodology of jurisprudence, the relationship between scientific knowledge and legal knowledge, and the history of legal concepts. He was visiting fellow at the Max-Plank-Institut fÃ¼r EuropÃ¤ische Rechtsgeschichte (Frankfurt a.M.), the Yale Law School and the University of Oxford. He is the author of four books in Italian and his papers have been published in journals such as Law and Philosophy, Ratio Juris, the American Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Jurisprudence, Informal Logic, Argumentation.

Thursday 15 June 2023, 6-7.30pm AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by the Julius Stone Institute of Jurisprudence at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

JSI Workshop | Towards a Moralisation of Jurisprudence? Reflections on the Future of Legal Philosophy
2023-06-27 14:00 - 16:00
JSI Workshop | Towards a Moralisation of Jurisprudence? Reflections on the Future of Legal Philosophy
In-person event
There is a trend in current Anglo-American legal philosophy that is drawing the attention of legal scholars. We could label this trend â€œThe moralisation of jurisprudenceâ€. Its animating idea is as follows: The questions still left open in contemporary jurisprudence can only be addressed by moral theory. Thus, there is no longer room for legal philosophy as an autonomous field of enquiry. The seminar aims to critically discuss this thesis from different theoretical perspectives.
About the speakers:
Professor Damiano Canale
Damiano CanaleÂ is Professor of Philosophy of Law and Critical Thinking at Bocconi University, Milan (Italy). His scholarship mainly focuses on legal reasoning and legal interpretation, the methodology of jurisprudence, the relationship between scientific knowledge and legal knowledge, and the history of legal concepts. He was visiting fellow at the Max-Plank-Institut fÃ¼r EuropÃ¤ische Rechtsgeschichte (Frankfurt a.M.), the Yale Law School and the University of Oxford. He is the author of four books in Italian and his papers have been published in journals such as Law and Philosophy, Ratio Juris, the American Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Jurisprudence, Informal Logic, Argumentation.
Dr Meir Yarom
Meir YaromÂ is the inaugural Julius Stone Postdoctoral Fellow. He has recently completed his PhD entitled ‘Reflections on Coherence in Law’ supervised by Jeremy Waldron at NYU School of Law.
Tuesday, 27 June 2023 2.00 – 4.00pm AEST
Venue: Â Board Room, Level 4, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by the Julius Stone Institute of Jurisprudence at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

JSI Seminar: The stability of bad things
2023-07-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: The stability of bad things
In-person event

Political philosophers have long been concerned with how best to ensure the stability of social orders. Stability is assumed to be a good, whether because whatever is good is better for being stably so, or because stability enables cooperation in the pursuit of whatever other goods we have.
But is stability always a good? What of the stability of systems of unfreedom, of forms of oppression and domination? Such systems are stable in the face of constant efforts to shift them. Why is this? Call this the question of the stability of bad things: why bad things are stable despite the fact that they are bad.
In this talk, I examine one central way in which systems of unfreedom are self-stabilizing: through shaping the moral psychology of agents within those systems. Unfreedom is not just a matter of having limited options for choice, but of the ways in which social systems foster in us particular ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. I argue that there are two ways in which this moral psychological shaping stabilizes systems of unfreedom. First, it generates support for those systems, by which I mean not just voluntary upholding of the system but a range of attitudes from consent to resigned participation. Second, it disrupts possibilities of collective resistance to those systems. Understanding these mechanisms of stability might better help us to first resist, and then transform, the systems of unfreedom to which we are all subject.
About the speaker:
Yarran Hominh
Yarran Hominh is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bard College. His research sits at the intersection of social and political philosophy with moral psychology. He draws liberally from a variety of traditions of thought and practice, including the pragmatist tradition, the Black radical tradition, Buddhist modernism, and anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-imperial praxis from around the globe. He is working on a book entitledÂ The Problem of UnfreedomÂ and has papers recently published or forthcoming inÂ Philosophers’ Imprint, The Pluralist, the Journal of Legal Philosophy, Comparative PhilosophyÂ and theÂ Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture.Â He is also the Associate Editor of the APA Studies on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies and is on the editorial board of The Philosopher.

Thursday 13 July 2023, 6-7.30pm AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by the Julius Stone Institute of Jurisprudence at The University of Sydney Law School.Â

JSI Workshop: Description and evaluation in contemporary jurisprudence
2023-07-20 11:00 - 13:00 | Board Room, Level 4
JSI Workshop: Description and evaluation in contemporary jurisprudence
In-person event
Modern jurisprudence has been tormented by a divide between description and evaluation in legal theory. Proponents argue that the distinction is essential to any clearheaded discussion of law itself and its relation to adjacent normative systems, especially morality. Opponents insist that being the necessarily normative practice it is, a pure description of the law and its theory is untenable. This conversation will bring together legal and moral theorists to shed some novel light on an old problem.
Speakers

Associate Professor Kevin Walton (University of Sydney Law School)
Dr. Yarran Hominh (Assistant Professor in Philosophy, Bard College)
Dr. Alma Diamond (Postdoctoral Fellow in Law & Philosophy, University of Chicago)
Dr. Meir Yarom (Postdoctoral Fellow in Jurisprudence, the Julius Stone Institute, University of Sydney Law School)

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Thursday 20 July, 2023
Time: 11am-1pm
Venue: Level 4, Board Room, New Law Building (F10)
CPD Points: 2
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This event is proudly presented by the Julius Stone Institute of Jurisprudence at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar: Epistemic privilege and duties of mutual assistance
2023-07-27 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: Epistemic privilege and duties of mutual assistance
In-person event
Victims of oppression are sometimes said to have epistemic privilege in virtue of their marginalised social position into the operation and impact of oppressive social structures. Epistemic privilege sometimes is cited as a basis for deference in social relations between victims and non-victimsâ€”for example, the use of â€˜lived experience’ to resolve or terminate disagreements about social and political oppression. I am interested in whether epistemic privilege can be a basis for duties of mutual assistance between victims, where assistance is understood as mitigating the harms of oppression on other victims without necessarily targeting oppression itself. I outline the ways in which victims of oppression can be said to have epistemic privilege, the limits of this privilege, and what duties of assistance this privilege might ground.
About the speaker:
Ashwini Vasanthakumar
Ashwini VasanthakumarÂ is a political and legal theorist with research interests in political obligation and authority, migration, and the ethics of resistance.
She is currently an Associate Professor and Queen’s National Scholar in Legal & Political Philosophy at Queen’s Law School in Canada. She holds an AB from Harvard, an MA from Toronto, a JD from Yale Law School, and a DPhil from Oxford, where she studied as a Canadian Rhodes Scholar.
Previously, she has worked at King’s College London, the University of York, University College, Oxford, and Jindal Global Law School. She has also been a Researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies (Stockholm) and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School (Berlin).

Thursday 27 July 2023, 6-7.30pmÂ AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

The Life and Death of States: Author Meets Readers
2023-08-10 17:30 - 19:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
The Life and Death of States: Author Meets Readers
In-person event
Natasha Wheatley’s bold new bookÂ The Life and Death of States: Central Europe and the Transformation of Modern SovereigntyÂ (Princeton University Press 2023) rediscovers the multinational Habsburg polity as a hothouse for ideas that still shape our understanding of the sovereign state. The radical mismatch between theories of singular sovereignty and the empire’s plural, layered legal order pushed politicians as well as scholars like Hans Kelsen toward bold new conceptions of the state and the nature of law. The book follows a recurring set of questions about the juridical birth, death, and survival of states through the creative experiments of Austro-Hungarian constitutional order and into the domain of international law following the empire’s collapse in 1918. These ideas would echo around the globe in the era of global decolonization that followed the Second World War, suggesting new ways of understanding Central Europe in the world.
About the speakers

Natasha WheatleyÂ is an historian of modern European and international history, with broad interests in intellectual and legal history, Central Europe, and the history of international law. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sydney before joining the Princeton faculty as an assistant professor in 2017. She is the co-editor of the volumesÂ Power and TimeÂ andÂ Remaking Central Europe, and her writing has appeared inÂ Past & Present, History and Theory, Law and History Review,Â and theÂ London Review of Books, among other places.Â The Life and Death of StatesÂ is her first book.
Professor Lisa FordÂ is the prize-winning author of three monographs:Â Settler Sovereignty: Jurisdiction and Indigenous People in America and Australia, 1788-1836Â (Harvard UP, 2010);Â Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800-1850Â (Harvard UP, 2016), co-authored with Professor Lauren Benton; andÂ The King’s Peace: Law and Order in the British EmpireÂ (Harvard UP, 2021). She recently co-editedÂ The Cambridge Legal History of AustraliaÂ (Cambridge UP, 2022). Her current project, on emergency in the British Empire is funded by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship.
Professor Lea YpiÂ is Professor in Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science and an Honorary Professor in Philosophy at the Australian National University. A native of Albania, she has degrees in Philosophy and in Literature from the University of Rome La Sapienza, a PhD from the European University Institute and was a Post-Doctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University. She is the author ofÂ Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency, The Meaning of PartisanshipÂ (with Jonathan White), andÂ The Architectonic of Reason.Â Her latest book, a philosophical memoir entitledÂ Free: Coming of Age at the End of History,Â won the 2022 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Slightly Foxed First Biography Prize and is being translated into more than twenty languages. Her academic work has been recognised with the British Academy Prize for Excellence in Political Science and the Leverhulme Prize for Outstanding Research Achievement. She coedits The Journal of Political Philosophy and occasionally writes for The Guardian.

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Thursday 10 August 2023
Time:Â 5.30-7pm
Venue:Â University of Sydney, Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown
This event is being held in-person at Sydney Law School.
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This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone InstituteÂ at the University of Sydney Law School.

Julius Stone Address: What is political progress?
2023-08-29 18:00 - 19:30 | Lecture Theatre 101, level 1, New Law Building F10A, Campderdown Campus
Julius Stone Address: What is political progress?
In-person event

Progress is both a necessary and a dangerous idea. It is necessary if one is striving to improve the way things are, and it is dangerous because the pursuit of progress has historically often given rise to episodes of paternalism, colonial domination and narratives of civilizational superiority. In my talk, I will present some first thoughts on how to defend a more critical account of progress. I will start by distinguishing between moral and political progress, then explore the relation between political progress and justice. I will suggest that we make political progress not when we approximate an ideal of justice that is always already known to us, but when the political institutions we construct reflect what we learn from the trials and failures of the past.
About the speaker
Professor Lea Ypi
Lea Ypi is Professor in Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science and an Honorary Professor in Philosophy at the Australian National University. A native of Albania, she has degrees in Philosophy and in Literature from the University of Rome La Sapienza, a PhD from the European University Institute and was a Post-Doctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University. She is the author ofÂ Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency, The Meaning of PartisanshipÂ (with Jonathan White), andÂ The Architectonic of Reason. Her latest book, a philosophical memoir entitledÂ Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, won the 2022 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Slightly Foxed First Biography Prize and is being translated into more than twenty languages. Her academic work has been recognised with the British Academy Prize for Excellence in Political Science and the Leverhulme Prize for Outstanding Research Achievement. She coeditsÂ The Journal of Political PhilosophyÂ and occasionally writes forÂ The Guardian.

Tuesday 29 August, 2023
Time:Â 6-7.30pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre 101, Level 1, New Law Building Annex (F10A)

This event is hosted by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.
The Julius Stone Address is generously sponsored by the Educational Heritage Foundation. It is named to commemorate the life and work of Professor Julius Stone, Australia’s foremost legal philosopher and for many years Challis Professor of International Law and Jurisprudence at The University of Sydney.

JSI Seminar | Beyond Indigenous Cultural & Intellectual Property: opportunities in law reform for Aboriginal-led medicines in Australia and the limitations of legal pluralism
2023-09-14 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar | Beyond Indigenous Cultural & Intellectual Property: opportunities in law reform for Aboriginal-led medicines in Australia and the limitations of legal pluralism
In-person event
Australian regulators and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have the opportunity to co-design a cross-jurisdictional framework that ensures structural integrity and cultural ethics, which embodies international law principles and standards. However, the Australian intellectual property regime and regulatory framework for traditional medicines is not fit for purpose. Equally, the tension between Australia’s settler state and unceded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples remains constrained by legal pluralism, western concepts of Indigeneity and biocultural knowledge and truth-telling.
About the speaker:
Dr Virginia Marshall
Dr Marshall is a Research Fellow based at the Australian National University’s School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet). She is a practising lawyer and leading legal scholar with expertise in Aboriginal water rights, native title rights in Sea Country, Indigenous governance and the intersection of Traditional Knowledge systems and western intellectual property regimes, especially as it relates to Indigenous commercialisation of traditional medicines.
Virginia holds various government appointments including serving on the Climate Change Authority Board, Deputy Co-Chair of the Committee on Aboriginal Water Interests and the Drafting Group for the National Water Initiative Mark 2 and regularly invited on expert roundtables relating to water policy reform. Virginia serves on the ANU Human Ethics Research Committee, the inaugural MÄori Research and Ethics Council and Chair of the ANU Indigenous Research Advisory Group. Virginia is a Co-Chair of the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster SolutionsÂ Indigenous peoples, cultures and knowledgesÂ research cluster and is a Research Associate and Board member of ANU’s Australian Studies Institute.

Thursday 14 September 2023, 6-7.30pmÂ AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar | Demystifying CLS: A reflection on writing an intellectual history of the Critical Legal Studies Movement
2023-10-05 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar | Demystifying CLS: A reflection on writing an intellectual history of the Critical Legal Studies Movement
In-person event
In his forthcoming bookÂ The Rise and Fall of Critical Legal Studies,Â Stewart uses the tools of CLS to analyse CLS, assessing its dominant narrative against its history and legacy. Literary and philosophical lenses are used to highlight the power of CLS, which in turn presents its deficits. In this seminar Stewart presents this rise and fall through key discoveries in his research, as well as anecdotes from the Crits, and why CLS was not as radical as it should have been.
About the speaker:
Dr James Gilchrist Stewart
James is a lecturer in law and LLB Program Manager at RMIT’s graduate school of business and law. James has published on legal theory, neoliberalism’s effect on law, and is a media voice on Australian consumer law. James’ first book â€œThe Rise and Fall of Critical Legal Studiesâ€ is scheduled for publication with Edinburgh University Press in 2024.
Thursday 5 October 2023, 6-7.30pmÂ AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar | Bathroom Bills and Liberal Rights
2023-10-12 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: Bathroom Bills and Liberal Rights
In-person event
On June 30th 2023 Florida’s House Bill 1521 came into effect. The bill requires that all trans people must use Florida public restrooms that align with the sex they were assigned at birth. This includes restrooms in all Florida airports, government buildings, schools and universities, city parks and beaches, and many Florida stadiums, rest stops, service stations, and conferences. The implications of this bill are that all trans women, for instance, must use the men’s bathroom in these places even if they have had sex reassignment surgery, have lived as a woman for decades, or since they were a child, are perceived to be a woman by everyone they meet, and/or have changed their birth certificate, their driving license, and their passports so that they acknowledge that they are female or a woman.
Earlier in 2023, Kansas adopted a similar bathroom bill, North Carolina adopted a similar bill in 2016-2017, the UK government is considering adopting a similar law, and at least 21 other US states have proposed similar bathroom bills. There has been a lot of discussion and criticism of these bathroom bills but no sustained case for their injustice (or their justice) has been made. This paper argues that bathroom bills like Florida’s breach trans people’s rights in three ways. I argue that we have the following three rights: (1) rights to not be made to subject ourselves to significant risks of harm in order to participate in the (face-to-face) public or social world; (2) rights to not be unjustly discriminated against; (3) rights to have our interests considered equally in lawmaking and policymaking.
I argue that a variety of more specific liberal and egalitarian rights and claims, made by a variety of liberals and egalitarians, imply (1-3) and (1-3) are very intuitive. And I argue that bathroom bills like Florida’s breach trans people’s rights to (1-3). I argue that bathroom bills force trans people to risk significant harm in order to participate in the public or social world, and refraining from adopting bathroom bills does not force anyone to incur any similar significant risk of harm to participate in the public or social world. I argue that the different philosophical theories of unjust discrimination that we have imply that bathroom bills are instances of unjust discrimination. And I argue that the adoption of bathroom bills does not involve equal consideration of trans people’s interests.
About the speaker:
Associate Professor Rach Cosker-Rowland
Rach Cosker-Rowland is an Associate Professor in Moral and Political Philosophy at the University of Leeds. She is the author ofÂ The Normative and the EvaluativeÂ (OUP, 2019) andÂ Moral DisagreementÂ (Routledge, 2020) as well as the co-editor ofÂ FittingnessÂ (OUP, 2022). She has recently published papers on the nature of gender, the relationship between gender identity and gender, and gender-identity-based rights in journals including Nous, Analysis, and the Journal of Medical Ethics. Before taking up her position at Leeds she held positions at the Australian Catholic University, La Trobe University, the University of Oxford, and the University of Warwick.
Thursday 12 October 2023, 6-7.30pm AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar | Contract law and reasons for action: A crash course in private law theory
2023-10-19 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar | Contract law and reasons for action: A crash course in private law theory
In-person event
If contract law is to be authoritative, it must mediate between the subjects of contract law and reasons for action they have. Either implicitly or explicitly, this insight informs various approaches to the theorisation of this law. Some have tried to understand contract law as mediating ordinary moral reasons relating to promising. Others have argued that this law embodies duties of private right, the sort of reasons that apply to us as independent individuals cooperating as equals. And there are others still who identify different sets of reasons for action special to the contractual relationship.
In my talk, I will identify the common flaw shared by these different theories. I will explain why focusing our attention on contract law as an exercise ofÂ politicalÂ authorityâ€”rather than authoritative in the abstractâ€”paves the way not only to a better understanding of the normative basis for contract but also the broad stakes involved in the making of contract law.
About the speaker:
Dr Arie Rosen
Arie Rosen is a legal theorist based at the University of Auckland Faculty of Law and a founding co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Legal and Political Theory. His work in legal and political philosophy focuses on political authority, the grounds for its exercise, the ideology that sustains it, and the impact it has on law and practical reasoning. His work appears in various edited volumes and leading journals, includingÂ Legal Theory, the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, the University of Toronto Law Journal, and theÂ Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence. His current project focuses on how political authority is exercised in the context of private law and what this can teach us about constitutional structures and the core commitments of liberal political morality.
Thursday 19 October 2023, 6-7.30pm AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar | The law and ethics of a property rights approach to frozen embryo disputes
2023-11-02 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: The law and ethics of a property rights approach to frozen embryo disputes
In-person event
Disputes over frozen embryos represent a particularly problematic case, legally and ethically, due to the ambiguity of their moral and legal status and the potential rights-claims which can be made with regard to them. Recent work has contextualised frozen embryos as liminal and suggested a contextual approach to their legal classification.
By appeal to personal property law, with a lens provided by Roman law doctrines, and reproductive bioethics, we argue that frozen embryos may be subjects of property rights, providing a more stable framework for dispute resolution. To illustrate how a property approach would work, we reconsider the facts of the influential Evans case and argue that if a proprietary rather than promissory estoppel claim had been pursued, the reverse outcome may have been reached, to the benefit of women who are disproportionately harmed in these scenarios.
About the speaker:
Teresa Baron
Teresa is a Nottingham Research Fellow working on reproductive ethics and philosophy of parenthood. She was previously a postdoc at the Czech Academy of Sciences, and a visiting research fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.
Thursday 2 November 2023, 6-7.30pm AEDT
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar | Bringing law back in: Theorizing the role of law in shaping the social reproduction bargain
2023-11-23 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar | Bringing law back in: Theorizing the role of law in shaping the social reproduction bargain
In-person event
A rich interdisciplinary feminist project spanning the fields of critical political economy, feminist economics, geography, migration, sociology and social policy has long sought to theorize and make visible the role social of reproduction and reproductive labour in sustaining both life and labour power, and its transformations, â€˜depletions’ and â€˜crises’ in post-Fordist life. With some notable exceptions, however, much of the intensive feminist attention upon social reproduction has taken placeÂ outsideÂ of legal scholarship. This might be attributed to several general factors: a dearth of materialist-informed approaches in feminist legal theory, legal feminists’ liberal orientations towards work, and a greater focus on unpaid care in the family, rather than paid reproductive labours performed in the market. In addition, non-legal disciplines have, for their part, been routinely less concerned with the role of law in their accounts of social reproduction, leaving the role of law in shaping the social reproduction bargain undertheorized.
This seminar paper maps aÂ legalÂ feminist approach to social reproduction theory. In doing so, it articulates the constitutive and distributional role of law in shaping markets in reproductive labours, focusing specifically on paid care and domestic work. Attention to law is important because when we focus on law’s distributional and disciplinary outcomes we can begin to imagine how different legal rules might shape them otherwise.
About the speaker:
Angela Kintominas
Angela Kintominas is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney where she teaches labour law. Her research interests lie in feminist and critical approaches to work, gender, migration and social reproduction. She is particularly interested in the intersection between social security/welfare state law, labour law and migration law in producing gender (and other) inequalities. Her research has focused on forms of gendered, informal and reproductive labour including care and domestic work, au pairing and surrogacy, as well as the platformization of care and domestic work in the gig economy, family migration and transnational family life, and the human and labour rights of migrant workers.

Thursday 23 November 2023, 6-7.30pm AEDT
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar | European Ã‰migrÃ© Legal Scholars in Australian Law Schools: Julius Stone's Circle
2024-03-07 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar | European Ã‰migrÃ© Legal Scholars in Australian Law Schools: Julius Stone’s CircleIn-person event

During and immediately after World War II, some Australian law schools had the opportunity to rescue European Ã©migrÃ© legal scholars fleeing persecution and fascism. Overwhelmingly, Australian universities did not become shelters for refugee intellectuals, despite the extraordinary efforts of some individuals and agencies supporting them. Nevertheless, some Ã©migrÃ© legal scholars did come to Australia, some gained positions in Australian universities, and they prompted a significant transformation in legal pedagogy and research.

Mark Lunney has remarked that the influence of European Ã©migrÃ© scholars on Australian law is a â€œforgotten historyâ€.[1]Â Part of a larger collaborative project that aims to retrieve that history, this paper details the contributions of Ã©migrÃ© scholars in the Department of International Law and Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney under Julius Stone’s leadership. Building upon the existing scholarship on Stone’s influence in Australia, this paper examines other individuals within Stone’s circle, including Ilmar Tammelo, Otto Bondy and Charles Alexandrowicz. It also explores the role of the Australian Society of Legal Philosophy, which was established to offer sanctuary and intellectual camaraderie for Ã©migrÃ© legal scholars.

Drawing upon archival records, unpublished sources and interviews with former students of the Department, the paper offers a case study of the network of jurists based at the University of Sydney in order to investigate the impact of migration on Australian legal institutions, education and practice.

The project, and perhaps also this paper, will introduce a wider cohort of characters that have influenced the development of Australian jurisprudence and legal education. In particular, it will allow for a richer understanding the aftermath of the Second World War as a key moment of transformation in the legal institutions and cultures in Australia.

[1]Â See Mark Lunney â€˜Legal Emigres and the Development of Australian Tort Law’ 36(2)Â Melbourne University Law ReviewÂ 494, 495.
About the speaker:
Katherine BiberÂ is a legal scholar, historian and criminologist, and Professor of Law at the University of Technology Sydney, where she specialises in the law of evidence. She is author ofÂ In Crime’s Archive: The Cultural Afterlife of EvidenceÂ (Routledge, 2019) andÂ Captive Images: Race, Crime, PhotographyÂ (Routledge, 2004). Her recent co-edited collections includeÂ Law’s DocumentsÂ (with Trish Luker and Priya Vaughan, Routledge 2022) andÂ Evidence and the ArchiveÂ (with Trish Luker, Routledge, 2017). She is currently writingÂ The Last Outlaws, a legal history of Australia’s last proclaimed outlaws, the brothers Jimmy and Joe Governor. Her research on the journeys and legacies of European Ã©migrÃ© lawyers in Australia is part of a collaborative research project with Eloise Chandler, Sara Dehm and Ana Vrdoljak.

Thursday 7 March 2024, 6-7.30pm AEDT
Venue: Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus

CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar | Dominium in the Age of Neurotechnologies: Who Is the Subject of Neurorights?
2024-04-15 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar | Dominium in the Age of Neurotechnologies: Who Is the Subject of Neurorights?In-person event

Many scholars expressed concerns about how potential misuse of neurotechnologies may threaten some basic rights such as right to privacy, freedom of thought, freedom from self-incrimination, right to fair trial, prohibition of discrimination, etc. In order to ensure an effective protection against these potential threats concrete proposals, such as reconceptualizing already existing rights or creating new rights, are set forth. Nevertheless, the academic debate on how to effectively protect the domain of cognitive liberty from potential violations is conducted without an open discussion on who should be the subject of neurorights. This is not surprising at the first glance, for there is a quasi-unanimity on the content of the notion of â€œhumanâ€ as the subject of human rights. The proposed categories of neurorights, especially that of cognitive liberty do not contradict the existing human rights concept in this respect.

The recently flourishing scholarship on the history of human rights, however, offers a critical study of the abstract concept of human as the subject of human rights. The present paper, in line with this scholarship, attempts to introduce a historiographic perspective to the debate on neurorights by asking whether the concept of human as maintained in the theory of human rights is suitable for defining a subject of rights in the age of neurotechnologies. First, the paper offers a historical account on how the concept of human was formed theoretically at the dawn of modernity. Secondly it explains the concept ofÂ dominiumÂ from a historical perspective and links it to the modern theory of human rights. Finally, it discusses whether neurotechnologies present a challenge to the theoretical constellation around the subject of human rights originating from the notion ofÂ dominium.
About the speaker:
Ozan ErÃ¶zdenÂ holds a PhD in public law from the University of Istanbul (1996). Before joining Kadir Has University Faculty of Law he held permanent lecturer positions at Istanbul University Law Faculty, YÄ±ldÄ±z Technical University, Department of Political Science and International Relations and at MEF University Law Faculty. Between 1998 and 2001 he worked as human rights observer within the OSCE mission to Croatia. Between March 2006 and September 2007 he conducted research at the International Criminal Law Institute of Cologne University as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow.

He participated in two different international scientific projects, namely Blue-Bird (funded by UNDP and coordinated by Central European University) and JURISTAS (funded by European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme), as well as a national one (TÃœBÄ°TAK 1001). ErÃ¶zden’s published works relate mainly to theory of state, theories of nationalism, human rights, transitional justice and philosophy of law. His current area of research is the interaction between neuroscience and legal theory.

Monday 15 April 2024, 6-7.30pm AEST
Venue: Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus

CPD Points:Â 1.5

This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar | Well-tempered power: "˜A cultural achievement of universal significance'
2024-05-09 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
#N/A

JSI Seminar: On Constitutional Review
2024-05-23 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: On Constitutional Review
In-person event
Constitutional review is a continental European instrument of checking the parliamentary legislation for its compliance with the constitution. This practice has a long history traced from ancient Greek democracy to the French and American Revolutions up to the 20th century culminating in Constitutional Courts. The Czechoslovakian experience of its Constitution of 1920 gives a unique perspective on the rule of law and the perennial questions of constitutional review: who should be the guardian of the Constitution? In its contemporary form, this question has become whether the doctrine of the sovereignty of the parliament is a serious obstacle for a too strong (dominant) role of the judiciary the Large scale of competences of the Constitutional courts (except constitutional review). The talk concludes by discussing possible solutions without Constitutional Courts.
About the speaker
Alexander BrÃ¶stlÂ is a Professor of Legal Philosophy in Slovakia. He was formerly a Judge on and later advisor to the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic, as well as a member of the Judicial Council. His career has included positions at Fudan University in Shanghai, and then Slovakian Consul in Beijing. Alexander next spent 18 years in Strasbourg as the Slovak member of the European Charter on Minority Languages. In addition, he has been professor of law at the PJ Å afÃ¡rik University and University of Trnava, and held several high level administrative positions.

Thursday 23 May 2024, 6-7.30pm AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5
This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar: A republican case for regulatory juries
2024-06-06 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: A republican case for regulatory juries
In-person event
The idea of administrative juries was proposed by David Arkush in 2013, drawing on the republican revival in public-law theory. These proposed juries would make some key policy choices especially underlying delegated lawmaking in the US. The paper challenges some criticisms that have been made of his proposal. It also draws on aspects of the republican tradition not employed by Arkush to support such juries. Indeed, the paper suggests that more extensive delegation could occur where juries are involved. Partly for that reason, the wider term â€˜regulatory juries’ is preferred. The paper argues that such juries may assist in democratising delegated legislation as well as the political system more generally. They could do so not only in the US but also, at least, in the UK and Australia.
About the speaker
Eric GhoshÂ is an Associate Professor in the Law School at the University of New England, where he has taught jurisprudence and administrative law. His research is in constitutional theory, political philosophy and the history of political thought, with a focus on the republican revival in legal scholarship. He is the author of articles published in journals including theÂ History of Political ThoughtÂ andÂ Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. More recently, he wroteÂ Beyond the republican revival: Liberty as non-domination, positive liberty, and sortitionÂ (Hart, 2020).

Thursday 6 June 2024, 6-7.30pm AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5
This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Workshop: Positive Pluralism and its Limits
2024-06-18 14:00 - 15:00 | Board Room, Level 4
JSI Workshop: Positive Pluralism and its Limits
In-person event
This project asks how freedom of religion should be construed when applied to religious insular communities whose way of life is often at odds with Western assumptions of a good life. I will argue for protection of distinctive religious communal identities as entities in and of themselves that are deserving of constitutional protection on the ground that they contribute to a thick pluralism. I propose a theory of pluralism that is premised on its positive value, and not merely on what John Rawls calls the â€œfact of pluralism.â€ At the same time, I argue that it is equally if not more important to ensure that members of such communities have a meaningful ability to exit from them. The project will spotlight several concrete impediments to the â€œright of exitâ€ in one large insular religious community: the Hasidic community in New York. It will lay out not only how internal communal practicesâ€”including and most notably the lack of secular educationâ€”can hamper members’ ability to exit but also how the state, via its family courts, contribute to its curtailment.
About the speaker
Zalman RothschildÂ is Assistant Professor of Law and Horn Family Distinguished Research Scholar in Law and Religion at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Previously, he was a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School. His research focuses on the First Amendment, anti-discrimination law, and law and religion.
Before becoming a Bigelow Fellow, Zalman served as a law clerk to Judge Jane Roth on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and practiced law for several years as a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss. During that time, Zalman was recognized byÂ The American LawyerÂ in its “Litigator of the Week” profile for winning a Fourth Amendment appeal and securing the reversal of all convictions of his client (2021) and received the “On the Riseâ€”Top 40 Young Lawyer” award from the American Bar Association (2022).
Zalman holds a JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School and a PhD in Religion from New York University.
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Tuesday 18 June, 2024
Time: 2-3pm
Venue: Level 4, Board Room, New Law Building (F10)
CPD Points: 1
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This event is proudly presented by the Julius Stone Institute of Jurisprudence at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar: Social Rights and Proportionality
2024-06-20 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
JSI Seminar: Social Rights and Proportionality
In-person event
This seminar outlines a model of proportionality analysis for the adjudication of positive constitutional economic and social rights [hereinafter: social rights]. Three distinctions are the basis of this model: (i) the distinction between empirical and normative aspects of the adjudication of social rights; (ii) between the level and mode of fulfilment of those rights; and (iii) between the competence of political authorities and courts to determine the appropriate level and mode of satisfaction.
About the speaker
Carlos BernalÂ is First Vice-President and Commissioner of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. He is professor of law at the University of Dayton (Ohio, USA) and Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia). Between 2017 and 2020, he was Justice at the Colombian Constitutional Court. His qualifications include a LL.B. from the University Externado of Colombia (BogotÃ¡ – Colombia) (1996), a S.J.D. from the University of Salamanca (Spain) (2001), and a M.A. (2008) and a Ph.D. in Philosophy (2011) from the University of Florida (U.S.A).
Prof. Bernal’s research focuses on constitutional rights’ interpretation, comparative constitutional change, human rights, energy transition, and general jurisprudence.
Thursday 20 June 2024, 6-7.30pm AEST
Venue:Â Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5
This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

JSI Seminar: Natural Law to Natural Rights to Human Rights
2024-07-24 18:00 - 19:30 | Board Room, Level 4
JSI Seminar: Natural Law to Natural Rights to Human Rights
In-person event
**Please note this event date has been moved to one day earlier than originally advertised.**
Natural law and natural rights are frequently discussed as if they are tightly connected, and human rights are presented as natural rights in a new label. But the relationship between all three is complicated and in tension. Natural law consists of objective legal principles and rules dictating the right course of action: do good and avoid evil, do not murder or steal, honor contracts, and other binding proscriptions and prescriptions. Natural rights, in contrast, are innate subjective rights individuals hold against government and others. This is about individual powers, entitlements, and areas of protection from infringement by others: a right to possess property, to defend one’s life, to exercise free speech, to choose one’s religion, to choose employment and spouses, and so forth.
Thomas Hobbes drew a clear distinction between the two: â€œRIGHT consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbear: whereas LAW, determineth, and bindeth to one of them: so that law, and right, differ as much, as obligation and liberty.â€ Or as John Locke put it, â€œfor right [jus] consists in the fact that we have a free use of something, but law [lex] is that which either commands or forbids some action.â€ A tension arises because natural rights promote freedom while natural law compels conformity. Natural rights and human rights appear obviously connected, since both espouse rights that attach to humans universally. Yet tension exists because natural rights had expired over a century before â€œhuman rightsâ€ obtained recognition, those who recognized human rights did not identify them with natural rights, and the content of the human rights extend far beyond previously recognized natural rights. Natural law, natural rights, and human rights are linked yet distinct.
About the speaker
Brian TamanahaÂ is the John S. Lehmann University Professor at Washington University School of Law. A scholar of jurisprudence and law and society, he has written eleven books, which have collectively received 6 book awards, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages.
Wednesday 24 July 2024, 6-7.30pm AEST – NEW DATE
Venue:Â Level 4, Boardroom, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5
This event is proudly presented by theÂ Julius Stone Institute of JurisprudenceÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.
