The constitutional power to make war: domestic legal issues raised by Australia's action in Iraq

The legal power to declare war has traditionally been a part of a prerogative to be exercised solely on advice that passed from the King to the Governor-General no later than 1942. In 2003, the Governor- General was not involved in the decision by the Prime Minister and Cabinet to commit Australian troops to the invasion of Iraq. The authors explore the alternative legal means by which Australia can go to war - means the government in fact used in 2003 - and the constitutional basis of those means. While the prerogative power can be regulated and/or devolved by legislation, and just possibly by practice, there does not seem to be a sound legal basis to assert that the power has been devolved to any other person. It appears that in 2003 the Defence Minister used his legal powers under the Defence Act 1903 (Cth) (as amended in 1975) to give instructions to the service head(s). A powerful argument could be made that the relevant sections of the Defence Act were not intended to be used for the decision to go to war, and that such instructions are for peacetime or in bello decisions. If so, the power to make war remains within the prerogative to be exercised on advice. Interviews with the then Governor-General indicate that Prime Minister Howard had planned to take the matter to the Federal Executive Council 'for noting', but did not do so after the Governor-General sought the views of the then Attorney-General about relevant issues of international law. The exchange raises many issues, but those of interest concern the kinds of questions the Governor-General could and should ask about proposed international action and whether they in any way mirror the assurances that are uncontroversially required for domestic action. In 2003, the Governor-General's scrutiny was the only independent scrutiny available because the legality of the decision to go to war was not a matter that could be determined in the High Court, and the federal government had taken action in March 2002 that effectively prevented the matter coming before the International Court of Justice

The mandatory notification of data breaches : issues arising for Australian and EU legal developments

Public and private sector organisations are now able to capture and utilise data on a vast scale, thus heightening the importance of adequate measures for protecting unauthorised disclosure of personal information. In this respect, data breach notification has emerged as an issue of increasing importance throughout the world. It has been the subject of law reform in the United States and in other jurisdictions. This article reviews US, Australian and EU legal developments regarding the mandatory notification of data breaches. The authors highlight areas of concern based on the extant US experience that require further consideration in Australia and in the EU.

Marketing VM services to achieve competitive advantage in the Malaysian Construction Sector

Value Management (VM) has been proven to provide a structured framework, together with supporting tools and techniques that facilitate effective decision-making in many types of projects, thus achieving ‘best value’ for clients. It is identified at International level as a natural career progression for the construction service provider and as an opportunity in developing leading-edge skills. The services offered by contractors and consultants in the construction sector have been expanding. In an increasingly competitive and global marketplace, firms are seeking ways to differentiate their services to ever more knowledgeable and demanding clients. The traditional demarcations have given way, and the old definition of what contractors, designers, engineers and quantity surveyors can, and cannot do in terms of their market offering has changed. Project management, design and cost and safety consultancy services, are being delivered by a diverse range of suppliers. Value management services have been developing in various sectors in industry; from manufacturing to the military and now construction. Given the growing evidence that VM has been successful in delivering value-for-money to the client, VM would appear to be gaining some momentum as an essential management tool in the Malaysian construction sector. The recently issued VM Circular 3/2009 by the Economic Planning Unit Malaysia (EPU) possibly marks a new beginning in public sector client acceptance on the strength of VM in construction. This paper therefore attempts to study the prospects of marketing the benefits of VM by construction service providers, and how it may provide an edge in an increasingly competitive Malaysian construction industry.

Analyzing requirements and approaches for sourcing software based services

Increasingly, software is no longer developed as a single system, but rather as a smart combination of so-called software services. Each of these provides an independent, specific and relatively small piece of functionality, which is typically accessible through the Internet from internal or external service providers. To the best of our knowledge, there are no standards or models that describe the sourcing process of these software based services (SBS). We identify the sourcing requirements for SBS and associate the key characteristics of SBS (with the sourcing requirements introduced). Furthermore, we investigate the sourcing of SBS with the related works in the field of classical procurement, business process outsourcing, and information systems sourcing. Based on the analysis, we conclude that the direct adoption of these approaches for SBS is not feasible and new approaches are required for sourcing SBS.

Analyzing requirements and approaches for sourcing software based services

Increasingly, software is no longer developed as a single system, but rather as a smart combination of so-called software services. Each of these provides an independent, specific and relatively small piece of functionality, which is typically accessible through the Internet from internal or external service providers. There are no standards or models that describe the sourcing process of these software based services (SBS). The authors identify the sourcing requirements for SBS and associate the key characteristics of SBS (with the sourcing requirements introduced). Furthermore, this paper investigates the sourcing of SBS with the related works in the field of classical procurement, business process outsourcing, and information systems sourcing. Based on the analysis, the authors conclude that the direct adoption of these approaches for SBS is not feasible and new approaches are required for sourcing SBS.

Elements of public asset management framework for local governments in developing countries

There is a widespread recognition to the need of better manage municipal property in most cities in the world. Structural problems across regional, state, and territorial governments that have legal powers to own and maintain real property are similar, regardless of the level of development of each country. Start from a very basic level of property inventory records. The need for better manage to the local government owned property is the result of widespread decentralisation initiatives that often have devolved huge property portfolios from central to local governments almost “overnight”. At the same time municipal or regional governments were and continue to be unprepared to deal with multiple issues related to the role of property owners and managers. The lack of discussion of public asset management especially the elements that should be incorporated in the framework creates an important challenge to study the discipline of public asset management further. The aim of this paper is to study the practices of public asset management in developed countries, especially the elements of public asset management framework, and its transferability to developing countries. A case study was selected and conducted to achieve this aim. They involved interviews and a focus group. The study found that in public asset management framework, proper asset identification, public asset needs analysis, asset life cycle and performance measurements are an important element that should be incorporated in the framework. Those elements are transferable and applicable to developing countries’ local governments. Finally, findings from this study provide useful input for the local government policy makers, scholars and asset management practitioners to establish a public asset management framework toward more efficient and effective local governments in managing their assets as well as increasing public services quality.

Finding a way through the ethical and legal maze : withdrawing medical treatment and euthanasia

This article examines Finnis' and Keown's claim that the intention/foresight distinction should be used as the basis for the lawfulness of withholding and withdrawing medical treatment, rather than the act/omission distinction which is currently used. I argue that whilst the intention/foresight distinction is sound and can apply to palliative pain relief hastening death, it cannot be applied to withholding and withdrawing medical treatment. Instead, the act/omission distinction remains the better basis for the lawfulness of withholding and withdrawal, and law reform is consequently unnecessary.

Efficient algorithm for achieving GWPMM fairness in ATM ABR services

A new explicit rate allocation algorithm is proposed for achieving generic weight-proportional max-min (GWPMM) fairness in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) available bit rate services. This algorithm scales well with a fixed computational complexity of O(1) and can realise GWPMM fair rate allocation in an ATM network accurately.

Quality of child abuse information in emergency department injury surveillance data : linking hospital and child welfare data

Emergency departments (EDs) are often the first point of contact with an abused child. Despite legal mandate, the reporting of definite or suspected abusive injury to child safety authorities by ED clinicians varies due to a number of factors including training, access to child safety professionals, departmental culture and a fear of ‘getting it wrong’. This study examined the quality of documentation and coding of child abuse captured by ED based injury surveillance data and ED medical records in the state of Queensland and the concordance of these data with child welfare records. A retrospective medical record review was used to examine the clinical documentation of almost 1000 injured children included in the Queensland Injury Surveillance Unit database (QISU) from 10 hospitals in urban and rural centres. Independent experts re-coded the records based on their review of the notes. A data linkage methodology was then used to link these records with records in the state government’s child welfare database. Cases were sampled from three sub-groups according to the surveillance intent codes: Maltreatment by parent, Undetermined and Unintentional injury. Only 0.1% of cases coded as unintentional injury were recoded to maltreatment by parent, while 1.2% of cases coded as maltreatment by parent were reclassified as unintentional and 5% of cases where the intent was undetermined by the triage nurse were recoded as maltreatment by parent. Quality of documentation varied across type of hospital (tertiary referral centre, children’s, urban, regional and remote). Concordance of health data with child welfare data varied across patient subgroups. Outcomes from this research will guide initiatives to improve the quality of intentional child injury surveillance systems.

Secure tracking for critical applications : communications, GPS and future Galileo services

Tracking/remote monitoring systems using GNSS are a proven method to enhance the safety and security of personnel and vehicles carrying precious or hazardous cargo. While GNSS tracking appears to mitigate some of these threats, if not adequately secured, it can be a double-edged sword allowing adversaries to obtain sensitive shipment and vehicle position data to better coordinate their attacks, and to provide a false sense of security to monitoring centers. Tracking systems must be designed with the ability to perform route-compliance and thwart attacks ranging from low-level attacks such as the cutting of antenna cables to medium and high-level attacks involving radio jamming and signal / data-level simulation, especially where the goods transported have a potentially high value to terrorists. This paper discusses the use of GNSS in critical tracking applications, addressing the mitigation of GNSS security issues, augmentation systems and communication systems in order to provide highly robust and survivable tracking systems.

Secure tracking using trusted GNSS receivers and Galileo authentication services

This paper describes a secure framework for tracking applications that use the Galileo signal authentication services. First a number of limitations that affect the trust of critical tracking applications, even in presence of authenticated GNSS signals, are detailed. Requirements for secure tracking are then introduced; detailing how the integrity characteristics of the Galileo authentication could enhance the security of active tracking applications. This paper concludes with a discussion of our existing tracking technology using a Siemens TC45 GSM/GPRS module and future development utilizing our previously proposed trusted GNSS receiver.

Requirements for enhancing trust, security and integrity of GNSS location services

The paper describes a number of requirements for enhancing the trust of location acquisition from Satellite Navigation Systems, particularly for those applications where the location is monitored through a remote GNSS receiver. We discuss how the trust of a location acquisition could be propagated to an application through the use of a proposed tamper-­resistant GNSS receiver which quantifies the trust of a location solution from the signaling used (ie. P(Y) code, Galileo SOL, PRS, CS) and provides a cryptographic proof of this to a remote application. The tamper­-resistance state of the receiver is also included in this cryptographic proof.

Using a design led disruptive innovation approach to develop new services : practising innovation in times of discontinuity

Organisations face increasing competition from new firms in emerging markets and their past superior products may no longer provide competitive advantage in markets based on different cost and value differentials. A shift in design practices from product solutions to health services which are accessible and affordable by all is required. This paper explores a design led approach to innovation to assist medical device companies develop new services and experiences and reshape their notions of the nature, development and deployment of health care services. This approach uses design tools and methodologies that are grounded in the authentic understandings of stakeholder experiences, to assist an organisation create a vision of likely future health care scenarios. Through this process, organisations can explore the complexities in the delivery of future health care services in new and emerging markets allowing them to tailor product and service solutions which focus on being accessible and affordable by all. The industry based case study for the design of health services in carried out in emerging economies. The contribution of this work in advancing research into design innovation and future research directions are also presented.

Governmentality and the reflection of legal educators : assessment practices as a case study

This paper presents a conceptual framework, informed by Foucault’s work on governmentality, which allows for new kinds of reflection on the practice of legal education. Put simply, this framework suggests that legal education can be understood as a form of government that relies on a specific rationalisation and programming of the activities of legal educators, students, and administrators, and is implemented by harnessing specific techniques and bodies of ‘know-how’. Applying this framework to assessment at three Australian law schools, this paper highlights how assessment practices are rationalised, programmed, and implemented, and points out how this government shapes students’ legal personae. In particular, this analysis focuses on the governmental effects of pedagogical discourses that are dominant within the design and scholarship of legal education. It demonstrates that the development of pedagogically-sound regimes of assessment has contributed to a reformulation of the terrain of government, by providing the conditions under which forms of legal personae may be more effectively shaped, and extending the power relations that achieve this. This analysis provides legal educators with an original way of reflecting on the power effects of teaching the law, and new opportunities for thinking about what is possible in legal education.