The Australian nonprofit sector legal and accounting almanac 2012

This is the fifth year that The Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies has published an Almanac summarising annual developments in the law relevant to Australia's nonprofit sector. The Almanac provides comprehensive summaries of legal cases in Australia and overseas, and changes to relevant legislation in all Australian jurisdictions, during 2012. It also includes articles outlining developments in taxation and charity law, and the regulation of nonprofit organisations. This edition naturally includes extensive discussion of the new national regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), and the legal arrangements surrounding its establishment. There are also articles on matters of interest arising in New Zealand, the UK, and Canada.

Effects of free flow state highway traffic parameters on the performance of amplify and forward cooperative multi-hop vehicular networks

In this paper we analyse the effects of highway traffic flow parameters like vehicle arrival rate and density on the performance of Amplify and Forward (AF) cooperative vehicular networks along a multi-lane highway under free flow state. We derive analytical expressions for connectivity performance and verify them with Monte-Carlo simulations. When AF cooperative relaying is employed together with Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) at the receivers the average route error rate shows 10-20 fold improvement compared to direct communication. A 4-8 fold increase in maximum number of traversable hops can also be observed at different vehicle densities when AF cooperative communication is used to strengthen communication routes. However the theorical upper bound of maximum number of hops promises higher performance gains.

Evaluating consent and legitimacy amongst shifting community norms : an EVE Online case study

The legitimate resolution of disputes in online environments requires a complex understanding of the social norms of the community. The conventional legal approach to resolving disputes through literal interpretation of the contractual terms of service is highly problematic because it does not take into account potential conflict with community expectations. In this paper we examine the importance of consent to community governance and argue that a purely formal evaluation of consent is insufficient to legitimately resolve disputes. As online communities continue to grow in importance to the lives of their participants, the importance of resolving disputes legitimately, with reference to the consent of the community, will also continue to grow. Real consent, however, is difficult to identify. We present a case study of botting and real money trading in EVE Online that highlights the dynamic interaction of community norms and private governance processes. Through this case study, we argue that the major challenge facing regulators of online environments is that community norms are complex, contested, and continuously evolving. Developing legitimate regulatory frameworks then depends on the ability of regulators to create efficient and acceptable modes of dispute resolution that can take into account (and acceptably resolve) the tension between formal contractual rules and complex and conflicting community understandings of acceptable behaviour.

From rights to responsibilities : reconceptualising carbon sequestration rights in Australia

Biosequestration of carbon in trees, forests and vegetation is a key method for mitigating climate change in Australia. To facilitate this, all States have enacted legislation for carbon sequestration rights, separating commercial rights in carbon from ownership of the land, trees and vegetation in which the carbon is sequestered. Ownership of carbon sequestration rights under state law is a prerequisite for the issue of carbon credits to proponents of ‘eligible sequestration offsets projects’ under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011 (Cth) (‘Carbon Farming Act’). This article examines the extent to which current State carbon sequestration rights support the offsets regime established by the Carbon Farming Act. The Commonwealth Act is concerned with allocating responsibilities to ensure the maintenance of the carbon sequestration, while the State Acts confer commercial rights in the carbon and leave the responsibilities to be allocated by private agreements. The carbon sequestration rights as defined by state laws do not confer the rights of access and management over land that a project proponent needs in order to discharge its responsibilities to maintain the carbon sequestration.

Legal activism for ensuring environmental justice

This article reviews some of the roles environmental lawyers have played in ensuring environmental justice in Bangladesh. It leans on law and social movement theories to explicate the choice (and ensuing success) of litigation as a movement strategy in Bangladesh. The activists successfully moved the courts to read the right to a decent environment into the fundamental right to life, and this has had the far-reaching effect of constituting a basis for standing for the activists and other civil society organisations. The activists have also sought to introduce emerging international law principles into the jurisprudence of the courts. These achievements notwithstanding, the paper notes that litigation is not a sustainable way to institute enduring environmental protection in any jurisdiction and recommends the utilisation of the reputation and recognition gained through litigation to deploy or encourage more sustainable strategies.

Proposed REDD+ project for the Sundarbans : legal and institutional issues

Sundarbans, a Ramsar and World Heritage site, is the largest single block of tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the world covering parts of Bangladesh and India. Natural mangroves were very common along the entire coast of Bangladesh. However, all other natural mangrove forests, including the Chakaria Sundarbans with 21,000 hectares of mangrove, have been cleared for shrimp cultivation. Against this backdrop, the Forest Department of Bangladesh has developed project design documents for a project called ‘Collaborative REDD+ Improved Forest Management (IFM) Sundarbans Project’ (CRISP) to save the only remaining natural mangrove forest of the country. This project, involving conservation of 412,000 ha of natural mangrove forests, is expected to generate, over a 30-year period, a total emissions reduction of about 6.4 million tons of CO2. However, the successful implementation of this project involves a number of critical legal and institutional issues. It may involve complex legal issues such as forest ownership, forest use rights, rights of local people and carbon rights. It may also involve institutional reforms. Ensuring good governance of the proposed project is very vital considering the failure of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded and Bangladesh Forest Department managed ‘Sundarbans Biodiversity Conservation Project’. Considering this previous experience, this paper suggests that a comprehensive legal and institutional review and reform is needed for the successful implementation of the proposed CRISP project. This paper argues that without ensuring local people’s rights and their participation, no project can be successful in the Sundarbans. Moreover, corruption of local and international officials may be a serious hurdle in the successful implementation of the project.

Settling sexual harassment complaints through conciliation : what complaints settle and what complaints don’t?

This paper explores why some complaints of sexual harassment lodged under Australian anti-discrimination laws might settle during the conciliation process while others do not. It draws on an analysis of data collected from files of sexual harassment complaints lodged with all state, territory and federal human rights agencies in the area of employment over a six month period. The analysis suggests that complaints that conform with the stereotypical image of sexual harassment, where a woman is physically sexually harassed by a senior man, are more likely to settle as are complaints where the complainant is in full-time, secure employment and where complainants are not legally represented. However, sustained Australian research, including by human rights agencies, is vital is to further explore these issues.

Prosecution of maritime terrorists : the role of national courts in ensuring accountability

Maritime security has emerged as a critical legal and political issue in the contemporary world. Terrorism in the maritime domain is a major maritime security issue. Ten out of the 44 major terrorist groups of the world, as identified in the US Department of State’s Country Reports on Terrorism, have maritime terrorism capabilities. Prosecution of maritime terrorists is a politically and legally difficult issue, which may create conflicts of jurisdiction. Prosecution of alleged maritime terrorists is carried out by national courts. There is no international judicial institution for the prosecution of maritime terrorists. International law has therefore anticipated a vital role for national courts in this respect. The international legal framework for combating maritime terrorism has been elaborately examined in existing literature therefore this paper will only highlight the issues regarding the prosecution of maritime terrorists. This paper argues that despite having comprehensive intentional legal framework for the prosecution of maritime terrorists there is still some scopes for conflicts of jurisdiction particularly where two or more States are interested to prosecute the same offender. This existing legal problem has been further aggravated in the post September 11 era. Due to the political and security implications, States may show reluctance in ensuring the international law safeguards of alleged perpetrators in the arrest, detention and prosecution process. Nevertheless, international law has established a comprehensive system for the prosecution of maritime terrorists where national courts is the main forum of ensuring the international law safeguards of alleged perpetrators as well as ensuring the effective prosecution of maritime terrorists thereby playing an instrumental role in establishing a rule based system for combating maritime terrorism. Using two case studies, this paper shows that the role of national courts has become more important in the present era because there may be some situations where no State is interested to initiate proceedings in international forums for vindicating rights of an alleged offender even if there is a clear evidence of violation of international human rights law in the arrest, detention and prosecution process. This paper presents that despite some bottlenecks national courts are actively playing this critical role. Overall, this paper highlights the instrumental role of national courts in the international legal order.

Legal regulation of 'decent work' : evidence from two big industries in Bangladesh

In most developing countries, the overall quality of the livelihood of labourers, work place environment and implementation of labour rights do not progress at the same rate as their industrial development. To address this situation, the ILO has initiated the concept of 'decent work' to assist regulators articulate labour-related social policy goals. Against this backdrop, this article assesses the Bangladesh Labour Law 2006 by reference to the four social principles developed by the ILO for ensuring 'decent work'. It explains the impact of the absence of these principles in this Law on the labour administration in the ready-made garment and ship-breaking industries. It finds that an appropriate legislative framework needs to be based on the principles of 'decent work' to establish a solid platform for a sound labour regulation in Bangladesh.

Moving beyond traditional clinics : creating a new legal clinics through community partnerships

To overcome the challenge of finding placements for large student numbers, QUT has partnered with community organisations to enable students to work on community-based projects addressing a community need. Students work in interdisciplinary teams with the community organisation to resolve issues and identify solutions to suit the organisation and client base. This paper will describe the community engaged learning pedagogy that is employed in the subject and will consider the benefits and challenges to law students of working collaboratively and developing community relationships. Critical appraisal of the legal system and the role of lawyers and analysis of the professional and ethical responsibilities legal practitioners is a focus of the subject. Explicit emphasis is placed on developing a sense of social responsibility and inculcating a pro bono ethos. Students attend workshops on topics such as reflective practice, cultural competencies, client solutions, collaborative practice and ethical obligations. This paper will discuss the challenges in creating the new legal clinic subject, benefits to students and community partners, and the results of initial student evaluation of the subject.

How long does it take for aquifer recharge or aquifer discharge processes to reach steady state?

Groundwater flow models are usually characterized as being either transient flow models or steady state flow models. Given that steady state groundwater flow conditions arise as a long time asymptotic limit of a particular transient response, it is natural for us to seek a finite estimate of the amount of time required for a particular transient flow problem to effectively reach steady state. Here, we introduce the concept of mean action time (MAT) to address a fundamental question: How long does it take for a groundwater recharge process or discharge processes to effectively reach steady state? This concept relies on identifying a cumulative distribution function, $F(t;x)$, which varies from $F(0;x)=0$ to $F(t;x) \to \infty$ as $t\to \infty$, thereby providing us with a measurement of the progress of the system towards steady state. The MAT corresponds to the mean of the associated probability density function $f(t;x) = \dfrac{dF}{dt}$, and we demonstrate that this framework provides useful analytical insight by explicitly showing how the MAT depends on the parameters in the model and the geometry of the problem. Additional theoretical results relating to the variance of $f(t;x)$, known as the variance of action time (VAT), are also presented. To test our theoretical predictions we include measurements from a laboratory–scale experiment describing flow through a homogeneous porous medium. The laboratory data confirms that the theoretical MAT predictions are in good agreement with measurements from the physical model.

Supporting transition to law school and student well-being : the role of professional legal identity

The empirically established decline in law student well being during the first year of law school is a red-flagged imprimatur for first year curriculum change. This article suggests that by engaging law students with the concept of a positive professional identity, student engagement and intrinsic motivation will increase because they are working towards a career goal that has meaning and purpose. Law school is a time of professional transformation and the legal academy can take steps to ensure that this transformation is inculcated with positive messages. Literature from the fields of law and psychology is analysed in this article, to explain how a positive conception of the legal profession (and a student’s future role within it) can increase a student’s psychological well-being – at law school and beyond.

Transition to law school and law student well-being : The importance of professional legal identity

The empirically established decline in law student well-being during the first year of law school is a red-flagged imprimatur for first year curriculum change. This article suggests that by engaging law students with the concept of a positive professional identity, student engagement and intrinsic motivation will increase because they are working towards a career goal that has meaning and purpose. Law school is a time of professional transformation and the legal academy can take steps to ensure that this transformation is inculcated with positive messages. Literature from the fields of law and psychology is analysed in this article, to explain how a positive conception of the legal profession (and a student’s future role within it) can increase a student’s psychological well-being – at law school and beyond.

A bondgraph approach to formation control using relative state measurements

In this paper we apply port-Hamiltonian theory with the bondgraph modelling approach to the problem of formation control using partial measurements of relative positions. We present a control design that drives a group of vehicles to a desired formation without requiring inter-vehicle communications or global position and velocity measurements to be available. Our generic approach is applicable to any form of relative measurement between vehicles, but we specifically consider the important cases of relative bearings and relative distances. In the case of bearings, our theory closely relates to the field of image-based visual servo (IBVS) control. We present simulation results to support the developed theory.

Carbon dioxide reforming of methane to produce synthesis gas over metal-supported catalysts: State of the art

Carbon dioxide reforming of methane produces synthesis gas with a low hydrogen to carbon monoxide ratio, which is desirable for many industrial synthesis processes. This reaction also has very important environmental implications since both methane and carbon dioxide contribute to the greenhouse effect. Converting these gases into a valuable feedstock may significantly reduce the atmospheric emissions of CO2 and CH4. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review on the thermodynamics, catalyst selection and activity, reaction mechanism, and kinetics of this important reaction. Recently, research has centered on the development of catalysts and the feasible applications of this reaction in industry. Group VIII metals supported on oxides are found to be effective for this reason. However, carbon deposition causing catalyst deactivation is the major problem inhibiting the industrial application of the CO2/CH4 reaction. Ni-based catalysts impregnated on certain supports show carbon-free operation and thus attract much attention. To develop an effective catalyst for CO2 reforming of CH4 and accelerate the commercial application of the reaction, the following are identified to be the most important areas for future work: (1) selection of metal and support and studying the effect of their interaction on catalyst activity; (2) the effect of different promoter on catalyst activity; (3) the reaction mechanism and kinetics; and (4) pilot reactor performance and scale-up operation.