Sewage disposal and wildlife health in Antarctica

Sewage and its microbiology, treatment and disposal are important to the topic of Antarctic wildlife health because disposal of untreated sewage effluent into the Antarctic marine environment is both allowed and commonplace. Human sewage contains enteric bacteria as normal flora, and has the potential to contain parasites, bacteria and viruses which may prove pathogenic to Antarctic wildlife. Treatment can reduce levels of micro-organisms in sewage effluent, but is not a requirement of the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty (the Madrid Protocol). In contrast, the deliberate release of non-native organisms for any other reason is prohibited. Hence, disposal of sewage effluent to the marine environment is the only activity routinely undertaken in Antarctica knowing that it will likely result in the release of large numbers of potentially non-native species. When the Madrid Protocol was negotiated, the decision to allow release of untreated sewage effluent was considered the only pragmatic option, as a prohibition would have been costly, and may not have been achievable by many Antarctic operators. In addition, at that time the potential for transmission of pathogens to wildlife from sewage was not emphasised as a significant potential risk. Since then, the transmission of disease-causing agents between species is more widely recognised and it is now timely to consider the risks of continued discharge of sewage effluent in Antarctica and whether there are practical alternatives.

The ultimate edge: The case for planning media for sustaining space communities

Governments and intergovernmental organisations have long recognised that space communities – the ultimate ‘settlements at the edge’ – will exist one day and have based their first plans for these on another region ‘at the edge’, the Antarctic. United States President Eisenhower proposed to the United Nations in 1960 that the principles of the Antarctic Treaty be applied to outer space and celestial bodies (State Department, n.d.). Three years later the UN adopted the Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space and in 1967 that became the Outer Space Treaty. According to the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, ‘the Treaty was opened for signature by the three depository Governments (the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America) in January 1967, and it entered into force in October 1967’ (Office for Outer Space Affairs, n.d). The status of the treaty (at time of writing) was 89 signatories and 102 parties (Office for Disarmament Affairs, n.d.). Other related instruments include the Rescue Agreement, the Liability Convention, the Registration Convention and the Moon Agreement (Office for Outer Space Affairs, n.d.-a). Jumping to the present, a newsagency reported in July 2014 (Reuters, 2014) that the British Government had shortlisted eight aerodromes in its search for a potential base for the UK’s first spaceplane flights which Ministers want to happen by 2018 (UK Space Agency, 2014). The United States already has a spaceport, in New Mexico (Cokley, Rankin, Heinrich, & McAuliffe, 2013)...

Walking and sitting in the Australian Antarctic Territory : mobility and imperial space

In 1995 and 1997, two major Australian expeditions travelled to Antarctica. They were the most heavily-reported Antarctican events of their two years: they were charged with the public production of Australian Antarctic spatiality. Both published exploration narratives: Don and Margie McIntyre’s Expedition Icebound generated an illustrated coffee-table book, Two Below Zero: A Year Alone in Antarctica, and the Spirit of Australia South Pole Expedition published its narrative as a video titled Walking on Ice: The History-Making Expedition to the South Pole. Yet, despite the fact that the two polar trips took place during the same period, their spatialities are markedly different. Walking on Ice is a mobile narrative of imperial exploration, while Two Below Zero is a static spatial story of colonial settlement. How polar mobility and relative immobility figure in Australia’s perceptions of, and claim to, nearly half of Antarctica is the focus of this chapter.

Treaty talk : past, present and future -- [Edited version of the inaugural Ngunnawal Lecture at the University of Canberra]

WELL I HEARD it on the radio and I saw it on the television. John Howard said there would be no talk of a treaty between his government and Indigenous people. He is not the first government leader to hold such views. Let me consider some of the public and official conversations that the concept of a treaty has invoked and what they reveal about white sovereignty. My interest in such dialogues stems from the fact that the idea of a treaty between white Australia and Indigenous people is not new and in the year of the centenary of Federation the Australian nation is still having trouble discussing it. Australian culture is less white than it used to be, but Anglicised whiteness forms the centre where white men established and defend institutions encouraging a possessive investment in white sovereignty. My intention is to invoke critical thought about these conversations. White sovereignty is a subject that asserts its dominance on social, political...

A gene encoding a new cold-active lipase from an Antarctic isolate of Penicillium expansum

Cold-active lipases are of significant interest as biocatalysts in industrial processes. We have identified a lipase that displayed activity towards long carbon-chain-p-nitrophenyl substrates (C12–C18) at 25 °C from the culture supernatant of an Antarctic Penicillium expansum strain assigned P. expansum SM3. Zymography revealed a protein band of around 30 kDa with activity towards olive oil. DNA fragments of a lipase gene designated as lipPE were isolated from the genomic DNA of P. expansum SM3 by genomic walking PCR. Subsequently, the complete genomic lipPE gene was amplified using gene-specific primers designed from the 5′- and 3′-regions. Reverse transcription PCR was used to amplify the lipPE cDNA. The deduced amino acid sequence consisted of 285 residues that included a predicted signal peptide. Three peptides identified by LC/MS/MS analysis of the proteins in the culture supernatant of P. expansum were also present in the deduced amino acid sequence of the lipPE gene suggesting that this gene encoded the lipase identified by initial zymogram activity analysis. Full analysis of the nucleotide and the deduced amino acid sequences indicated that the lipPE gene encodes a novel P. expansum lipase. The lipPE gene was expressed in E. coli for further characterization of the enzyme with a view of assessing its suitability for industrial applications.

The Marrakesh Treaty could bring the world’s books to the blind

An estimated 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired. Some 90% of those live in developing nations, where less than 1% of the world’s books are available in a form they can read. In developed countries, the situation is only marginally better: only around 7% of the world’s books are accessible to print-disabled people. The right to read is part of our basic human rights. Access to the written word is crucial to allow people to fully participate in society. It’s important for education, political involvement, success in the workplace, scientific progress and, not least, creative play and leisure. Equal access to books and other cultural goods is also required by international law. The technology now exists to deliver books in accessible electronic forms to people much more cheaply than printing and shipping bulky braille copies or books on tape. Electronic books can be read with screen readers and refreshable braille devices, or printed into large print or braille if needed. Now that we have this technology, what’s been referred to as the global “book famine” is a preventable tragedy.

Submission to the Attorney-General's Department consultation on "Marrakesh Treaty options for implementation" discussion paper

It is extremely important to ensure that people with disabilities can access information and cultural works on an equal basis with others. Access is fundamentally important to enable people with disabilities to fully participate in economic, social, and political life. This is both a pressing moral imperative and a legal requirement in international law. Australia should take clear steps to affirmatively redress the fundamental inequalities of access that people with disabilities face. This requires a fundamental shift in the way that we think about copyright and disability rights: the mechanisms for enabling access should not be a limited exception to normal distribution, but should instead be strong positive rights that are able to be routinely and practically exercised.

Pacific Rim treaty threatens public health: Patent law and medical procedures

Doctors, surgeons, and physicians around the Pacific Rim should be concerned by the proposals revealed by WikiLeaks in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). One of the most controversial features of the TPP is the proposal to provide for patent protection in respect of medical procedures. As Public Citizen observed, ‘Health providers, including surgeons, could be liable for the methods they use to treat patients.’ The civil society group noted: ‘Essentially, except for when a surgeon uses her bare hands, surgical methods would be patentable under the U.S. proposal.’ The TPP takes a broad approach to patents and medicine; lacks appropriate safeguards; and fails to address larger questions about equity, development, and human rights. Such a measure could result in greater litigation against medical professionals; barriers to access to medical procedures for patients; and skyrocketing health costs.

Trick or treaty?: The Australian debate over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

The secretive 2011 Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement – known in short by the catchy acronym ACTA – is a controversial trade pact designed to provide for stronger enforcement of intellectual property rights. The preamble to the treaty reads like pulp fiction – it raises moral panics about piracy, counterfeiting, organised crime, and border security. The agreement contains provisions on civil remedies and criminal offences; copyright law and trademark law; the regulation of the digital environment; and border measures. Memorably, Susan Sell called the international treaty a TRIPS Double-Plus Agreement, because its obligations far exceed those of the World Trade Organization's TRIPS Agreement 1994, and TRIPS-Plus Agreements, such as the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement 2004. ACTA lacks the language of other international intellectual property agreements, which emphasise the need to balance the protection of intellectual property owners with the wider public interest in access to medicines, human development, and transfer of knowledge and technology. In Australia, there was much controversy both about the form and the substance of ACTA. While the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was a partisan supporter of the agreement, a wide range of stakeholders were openly critical. After holding hearings and taking note of the position of the European Parliament and the controversy in the United States, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties in the Australian Parliament recommended the deferral of ratification of ACTA. This was striking as representatives of all the main parties agreed on the recommendation. The committee was concerned about the lack of transparency, due process, public participation, and substantive analysis of the treaty. There were also reservations about the ambiguity of the treaty text, and its potential implications for the digital economy, innovation and competition, plain packaging of tobacco products, and access to essential medicines. The treaty has provoked much soul-searching as to whether the Trick or Treaty reforms on the international treaty-making process in Australia have been compromised or undermined. Although ACTA stalled in the Australian Parliament, the debate over it is yet to conclude. There have been concerns in Australia and elsewhere that ACTA will be revived as a ‘zombie agreement’. Indeed, in March 2013, the Canadian government introduced a bill to ensure compliance with ACTA. Will it be also resurrected in Australia? Has it already been revived? There are three possibilities. First, the Australian government passed enhanced remedies with respect to piracy, counterfeiting and border measures in a separate piece of legislation – the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Act 2012 (Cth). Second, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade remains supportive of ACTA. It is possible, after further analysis, that the next Australian Parliament – to be elected in September 2013 – will ratify the treaty. Third, Australia is involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. The government has argued that ACTA should be a template for the Intellectual Property Chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The United States Trade Representative would prefer a regime even stronger than ACTA. This chapter provides a portrait of the Australian debate over ACTA. It is the account of an interested participant in the policy proceedings. This chapter will first consider the deliberations and recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties on ACTA. Second, there was a concern that ACTA had failed to provide appropriate safeguards with respect to civil liberties, human rights, consumer protection and privacy laws. Third, there was a concern about the lack of balance in the treaty’s copyright measures; the definition of piracy is overbroad; the suite of civil remedies, criminal offences and border measures is excessive; and there is a lack of suitable protection for copyright exceptions, limitations and remedies. Fourth, there was a worry that the provisions on trademark law, intermediary liability and counterfeiting could have an adverse impact upon consumer interests, competition policy and innovation in the digital economy. Fifth, there was significant debate about the impact of ACTA on pharmaceutical drugs, access to essential medicines and health-care. Sixth, there was concern over the lobbying by tobacco industries for ACTA – particularly given Australia’s leadership on tobacco control and the plain packaging of tobacco products. Seventh, there were concerns about the operation of border measures in ACTA. Eighth, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties was concerned about the jurisdiction of the ACTA Committee, and the treaty’s protean nature. Finally, the chapter raises fundamental issues about the relationship between the executive and the Australian Parliament with respect to treaty-making. There is a need to reconsider the efficacy of the Trick or Treaty reforms passed by the Australian Parliament in the 1990s.

A mercurial treaty: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (# TPP) and the United States

According to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Ron Kirk, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is “an ambitious, next-generation, Asia-Pacific trade agreement that reflects U.S. priorities and values”.

Opening Pandora's box: Secret treaty threatens human rights

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) 2011 - Twitter hashtag #ACTA - is a controversial trade agreement designed to provide for stronger enforcement of intellectual property rights.

A Supplementary Submission on The Commonwealth's Treaty-Making Process

This supplementary submission highlights two new developments, which have arisen since the initial submission. First, it considers the publication of the draft Investment Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) by WikiLeaks. Second, it looks at the introduction of the fast-track trade promotion authority bill, the Bipartisan Congressional Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015, into the United States Congress. The two topics have been inter-linked to a certain extent.