JSI Seminar | European Émigré Legal Scholars in Australian Law Schools: Julius Stone’s Circle

In-person event

During and immediately after World War II, some Australian law schools had the opportunity to rescue European émigré 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 émigré 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 émigré scholars on Australian law is a “forgotten history”.[1] Part of a larger collaborative project that aims to retrieve that history, this paper details the contributions of émigré 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 émigré 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Drawing upon archival records, unpublished sources and interviews with former students of the Department, the paper offers a case study of the network of jurists based at the University of Sydney in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] See Mark Lunney ‘Legal Emigres and the Development of Australian Tort Law’ 36(2) Melbourne University Law Review 494, 495.

About the speaker:

Katherine Biber 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 of In Crime’s Archive: The Cultural Afterlife of Evidence (Routledge, 2019) and Captive Images: Race, Crime, Photography (Routledge, 2004). Her recent co-edited collections include Law’s Documents (with Trish Luker and Priya Vaughan, Routledge 2022) and Evidence and the Archive (with Trish Luker, Routledge, 2017). She is currently writing 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 émigré 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: 1.5

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