The Trans-Pacific partnership: Brunei, trade, and human rights

The Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, has said that ‘Australia is Open for Business’. His trade and investment minister, Andrew Robb, has vigorously pursued bilateral trade agreements with neighbours, South Korea, Japan, China, and India — as well as the regional trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Such trade activity raises questions about the relationship between trade policy and human rights. If we are open for business, should we be open for business for countries engaged in human rights abuses? Should enter into trade agreements, which could have an adverse upon human rights? The Trans-Pacific Partnership highlights a range of problems with Australia’s treaty-making process. One important issue is the question of the relationship between trade and human rights.

Academic Freedom and University Autonomy

This chapter examines the law in relation to the doctrines of university autonomy and academic freedom, in the Australian context. It first considers some traditional misconceptions and surrounding these doctrines, which seem to have obscured the real nature of the relationship between universities and the state. It then examines some laws and legal instruments at an international, federal and State level which define and regulate these freedoms. It considers some contemporary controversies, to illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses surrounding how alleged infringements of academic freedom and independence have been managed. It concludes with a look at an important emerging challenge which has implications for how we might avoid and manage such controversies in the future.

Regulating unilateral supermarket misconduct as customer/acquirer of goods and services

Supermarkets in Australia may have substantial market power as buyers in wholesale markets for grocery products. They may also have substantial bargaining power in negotiating contracts with their suppliers of grocery products. The Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA) regulates misconduct by supermarkets as customer/acquirers in three ways. First, s 46(1) of the CCA prohibits the ‘taking advantage’ of buyer power for the purpose of damaging a competitor, preventing entry or deterring or preventing competitive conduct. Secondly, s 21 of the ACL prohibits unconscionable conduct in business–to–business transactions. Thirdly, Pt IVB of the CCA provides for the promulgation of mandatory and voluntary industry codes of conduct. Since 1 July 2015 the conduct of supermarkets as customer/acquirers has been regulated by the Food and Grocery Industry Code of Conduct. This article examines these three different approaches. It considers them against the background of the misconduct at issue in ACCC v Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd which the ACCC chose to litigate as an unconscionable conduct case, rather than a misuse of market power case. The article also considers the strengths and weaknesses of each of the three approaches and concludes that while the three approaches address different problems there is scope for overlap and all three should be retained for compete coverage.

An agreement to negotiate a contract in good faith: No legal content and too uncertain for enforcement

The decision of Baldwin v Icon Energy Ltd [2015] QSC 12 is generally instructive upon the issue of the minimum required to enforce an agreement to negotiate .The language of these agreements is always couched in terms which include the expressions “good faith” and “reasonable endeavours” as descriptive of the yardstick of behaviour of each party in the intended negotiation to follow such an agreement. However, the mere statement of these intended characteristics of negotiation may not be sufficient to ensure that the agreement to negotiate is enforceable.

Breaches of lease between exercise of option to renew and expiry of lease in Queensland

The decision of Greppo v Jam-Cal Bundaberg Pty Ltd [2015] QCA 131 illustrates a defect in s 128 of the Property Law Act 1974(Qld) which gives a right to a lessee to apply for relief against forfeiture against loss of a right to exercise an option to renew. The defect arises because the legislation does not adequately deal with breaches that occur after the exercise of the option but before the expiry of the lease. Most commercial leases of all kinds have a standard provisions, as the lease in this case, as a conditions of the exercise of the option to renew that the lessee will have given notice of exercise within the time specified to the lessor and will have up to the date of expiry of the lease paid all rent and observed all lessee’s covenants. The difficulties occur because invariably an option must be exercised before the expiry of the lease when a lessee may not be in breach of the lease but may later prior to the expiry of the lease fall into breach. As this decision indicates,at least in Queensland, that the lessee who desires to challenge the lessor’s right to enforce those conditions can neither seek relief under s 128 against forfeiture of the right to exercise the option ,or indeed, under s 124 of the Property Law Act 1974 to preserve the agreement for lease brought about by the otherwise regular exercise of the option to renew. The decision cries out for legislative reform along the lines of s 133E of the Conveyancing Act 1919(NSW) which was amended in 2001 to meet this contingency.

Bank guarantees and the reasonable expectations of beneficiaries

A bank guarantee has traditionally been viewed as a cash equivalent. This view is supported by the operation of the autonomy principle. However, the autonomy principle is subject to certain recognised exceptions both at common law and under statute. One of these exceptions is commonly referred to as the negative stipulation or underlying contract exception. In recent times the operation of this particular exception has given rise to a wealth of case law. This article examines whether this recent case law appropriately recognises the reasonable expectations of the beneficiary of a bank guarantee that a bank guarantee should function not only as a security but as a risk allocation device.

Commercial Law in East Asia

The shift of economic gravity towards East Asia requires a critical examination of law's role in the Asian Century. This volume explores the diverse scholarly perspectives on law's role in the economic rise of East Asia and moves from general debates, such as whether law enjoys primacy over culture, state intervention or free markets in East Asian capitalism, to specific case studies looking at the nature of law in East Asian negotiations, contracts, trade policy and corporate governance. The collection of articles exposes the clefts and cleavages in the scholarly literature explaining law's form, function and future in the Asian Century.

Introduction: Mapping the Contours of East Asian Commercial Law for the Asian Century

The centre of economic gravity in the new century is shifting to the East. Since 200 1, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Asia's contribution to world economic growth has matched that of the United States and Europe combined, and, since 2006, has even exceeded it (IMF, 20 I I; Neumann and Arora, 20 II ). This surge is easy to explain: China has emerged as a global super-power; Japan remains the third-largest world economy, despite only recently emerging from over twenty years of economic stagnation (The Age, 2013); South Korea and the ' tiger ' economies of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore have achieved high-level economic development through capital investment and technological innovation; and Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia have supplied riches in labour and resources to the regional economy (Macintyre and Naughton, 2005, p. 78). A growing middle class is lifting consumption. ‘Billions of Asians,' writes Mahbubani (2008, p. 3), 'are marching to modernity.’ This book examines scholarly interpretations for the role commercial law has played in East Asia's economic rise. At first blush, this might seem a daunting task. After all, as some theorists have argued, the East Asian experience is largely neglected in writings on Jaw generally and commercial law more broadly (Wolff, 20 12). This is because law, as a discipline, was largely forged in the prior European and American centuries; these 'Anglo-American moorings' ill-serve legal analysis in the new Asian Century (Cossman, 1997, p. 539).

Litigiousness in Japan: Land of the rising law suit?

For over two decades, Japanese politicians and bureaucrats have struggled to resurrect a lifeless economy. With the 1990s marred by crippling financial crisis, a spate of corporate insolvencies, ongoing scandals in Japan’s premier economic ministries, rising unemployment and low to negative growth, policy-makers responded with successive legislative reforms aimed at restructuring public administration and private governance of the economy. The Big Bang financial reforms, large-scale reform of Japanese corporate law, and a restructured bureaucracy are representative examples of this reform effort.

Should law look east?

How well-equipped is the discipline of law to cope with complex questions arising in the emerging Asian Century? This editorial article reviews how time and space namely, the predominance of European and American power in 19th and 20th centuries have forged an Anglo-American emphasis in traditional disciplines of law, such as comparative law and its more recent cousins of international law and global law. The editorial poses the question of whether this limits the ability of traditional legal disciplines to make sense of complex political, economic and social questions emerging during the Asian Century. It further interrogates whether traditional legal disciplines can be rehabilitated to engage sensibly with Asian legal power or whether a new discipline of ‘Asian Law’ is warranted.

A legal perspective of carbon rights and benefit sharing under REDD+: A conceptual framework and examples from Cambodia and Kenya

This article discusses two key issues in REDD+ design and implementation at the national level – carbon rights, and benefit sharing. Both carbon rights and benefit sharing can be understood as new legal concepts (although they build on existing law), and as legal concepts they offer a framework for addressing related areas of REDD+ policy. Many countries are currently considering how to manage carbon rights and benefit sharing issues, including Cambodia and Kenya. Both of these countries host existing forest carbon projects and are also in the process of designing national REDD+ programmes. This article uses a conceptual framework for carbon rights and benefit sharing derived from legal analysis to consider the cases of both Cambodia and Kenya, and also includes a general discussion of the challenges countries might encounter when considering how to manage carbon rights and benefit sharing in the context of REDD+ implementation.

Reinforcing stigma or delivering a fresh start: Bankruptcy and future engagement in the workforce

In Australia, bankruptcy retains a social stigma, as is often seen as a personal failing, and an indication that the individual cannot be trusted to meet their obligations. Official labelling and informal labelling reinforce this stigmatisation of bankruptcy in employment and business contexts. This occurs through legislation and policy that imposes restrictions on participation in some occupations on the grounds of bankruptcy, and imposes obligations on persons to disclose their bankruptcy to their employer. These restrictions and obligations that are varying in length and extent, both within industries and professions and across industries and professions, and appear to lack a coherent policy justification. Further, informal labelling is facilitated by the law providing for a permanent, publicly accessible record of bankruptcy, and failing to restrict the use of bankruptcy information in employment and business decision-making. This stigmatisation of bankruptcy inhibits the fresh start objective of bankruptcy, and is not supported by a strong correlation between bankruptcy and negative personal or other attributes. This article therefore argues that a review is needed to determine the circumstances in which there is a genuine policy justification for employment restrictions, and the appropriate length and scope of such restrictions. Reform of the Bankruptcy Act should also be considered. Possible areas for law reform including reducing the minimum period of bankruptcy; removing the permanency and/or public accessibility of the bankruptcy record; revising the language used in the Bankruptcy Act; and introducing a prohibition or restriction on the ability of employers to use bankruptcy status in employment decision making. Such changes would promote the fresh start objective of Australia’s bankruptcy system, and increase the likelihood that bankruptcy does not unfairly inhibit an individual’s ability to engage as an economic actor in Australian society and thereby improve their financial well-being.