Dr Liz Curran is Associate Professor, ANU College of Law.
Content by Author
Lessons for the Future: the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Childhood Abuse
Australia’s inquiry into childhood institutional abuse has lessons for other jurisdictions, especially the UK. International human rights provisions for children in institutional care include Article 13 of the Convention on the Rights ...
The Australian Legal Assistance Sector and the Critical Importance of Justice to Human Lives
In February 2017, I was invited to be an ‘expert adviser’ for the Law Council of Australia’s (LCA) ‘Justice Project’. I was initially reticent. Senate Inquiries (2004; 2009; 2015), reviews, a survey in Australia of the overloaded ...
Freedom of Speech or Enabling a Right to Insult? The Australian Debate over Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975
With a rise in the Neo-Right worldwide, we see the fear of the foreigner and the blaming of refugees and welfare recipients for ills that often flow from structural inequality and injustice. The discourse is being reframed to that of ...
The Partnership between Health and Law to Ensure Human Rights
If human rights are to meaningfully alleviate poverty, we must factor in the day to day need for legal advice services. Even where there is no court or tribunal case involved, access to legal advice can be critical. It can save ...
Hopeful Developments in Family Violence in Australia
In Australia, one woman per week dies from intimate partner violence. By October 2015, 62 women had died due to intimate partner family violence in the calendar year. There have been decades of advocacy challenging the poor responses ...
Racial Discrimination Act and Free Speech– Carte Blanche or Fair and Reasonable – Where are Human Rights in all This?
Professor George Williams has noted ‘the fact that freedom of speech receives no general protection in Australian law is not of itself and argument for introducing such protection’. Unlike in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United ...
Valuing the Work of Community Lawyers’ to Resolve Systemic Problems – The Productivity Commission Report on Access to Justice Arrangements in Australia
In the past decade or more in Australia, creeping managerialism and efforts to reduce funding of services under the guise of ‘fiscal belt tightening’ and efficiency have threatened and sometimes jeopardised the effectiveness of the ...
