News and Events
Release of 2012 RUSSLR Research Report
To download a copy of the report, please click here.
Justice, Mercy and Conviction: Perspectives on Law, Religion and Ethics Conference - 7-9 June 2013
Registrations are now open for “Justice, Mercy and Conviction: Perspectives on Law, Religion and Ethics, a conference being co-organised by The University of Adelaide Research Unit for the Study of Law, Religion and Society (RUSSLR). The Brochure and Registration materials are available here.
RUSSLR Visiting Scholar
Dr Vanja-Ivan Savic, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Zagreb, Croatia, will present 'What to Expect from Laws in Complex Religious and Ethnic Societies?: Insight into Bosnia and Lebanon' on 18 February at 1pm in Room 110.
The Doctrine of Discovery in Australia and the United States By Professor Robert J. Miller
Synopsis: England explored and colonised the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada under the authority of an international law called the Doctrine of Discovery. Europeans justified their sovereign and property claims over Indigenous Peoples and their lands all around the world with the Discovery Doctrine.
This legal principle was rationalised by religious and ethnocentric ideas of European and Christian superiority over the other cultures, religions, and races of the world. The Doctrine provided that newly-arrived Europeans automatically acquired property rights in the lands of Indigenous Peoples and gained political and commercial rights over the Indigenous inhabitants. The United States Supreme Court expressly adopted Discovery in 1823 in the case of Johnson v. M'Intosh and American, Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand governments and courts have cited and relied on that case and Discovery to try to control Indigenous Peoples.
Australia and the United States did not apply the elements of Discovery in the exact same manner or at the exact same time periods; but the similarities of their use of Discovery are striking and not the least bit surprising since the Doctrine was English colonial law. Viewing Australian and American history and law in light of the Doctrine of Discovery helps to expand the knowledge and understanding of both countries and their attempts to colonise Indigenous Peoples.
Robert J. Miller is a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, USA. He is the Chief Justice for the Grand Ronde Tribe's Court of Appeals, and a citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. Publications include, Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies, (co-authored with Indigenous professors from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) (Oxford University Press, 2010).
When: Wednesday, 29 October at 6.00pm
Where: Moot Court Room, Ligertwood Building, North Tce
RUSSLR Launch 2011 Research Report
To download a copy of the report, please click here.
RUSSLR to Co-Host Roundtable on Law and Religion Scholarship and Teaching in Australia
RUSSLR and the ANU College of Law are co-hosting a one-day Roundtable on Law and Religion in Australia to be held in Canberra on Friday, 22 June 2012. Professor Brett G. Scharffs, Francis R. Kirkham Professor of Law, Brigham Young University Law School, and Associate Director of the International Centre for Law and Religion Studies, will launch the Roundtable on the evening of Thursday, 21 June with a public lecture.
The purpose of the event is to gather together the foremost law and religion teachers and scholars in Australia with a view to generating discussion on current issues, recent developments, opportunities for collaboration and current projects involving research and teaching.
“The Religious Writings of Sir Richard Hanson, Second Chief Justice of South Australia”
When: Tuesday, 10 April, 2012 at 12 noon
Where: Moot Court Room, Ligertwood Building, Law School
Speaker: Dr Greg Taylor is currently completing a biography of Sir Richard Hanson, shortly to be published with Federation Press. He has written widely on the history of the law of South Australia in the nineteenth century. He is currently an Associate Professor at Monash University's Faculty of Law.
Synopsis: Sir Richard Hanson was one of the co-founders of South Australia and its second Chief Justice (1861 - 1876). He was also a self-taught intellectual who published four books on religious topics : in the early 1860s he attempted to reconcile the discoveries of science with religion, but by the late 1860s he had lost the protestant dissenting faith in which he grew up and wrote lives of Jesus and St Paul in the modernist fashion, assuming no supernatural or miraculous content and treating the events solely as occurrences in human history. Although he was an amateur in this field, his books were reasonably well reviewed by the experts. In his writing, he was clearly influenced by the judicial method. This talk will trace Sir Richard Hanson's loss of faith, place it in the broader context of events at the time as well as his own biography and show how he transposed the judicial method into the field which he entered as an amateur.
For further information, contact Paul Babie.
Book Launch: Freedom of Religion under Bills of Rights edited by Paul Babie and Neville Rochow
The Adelaide Law School, the University of Adelaide Research Unit for the Study of Society, Law and Religion (RUSSLR), and The University of Adelaide Press are very pleased to launch: Paul Babie and Neville Rochow (eds), Freedom of Religion under Bills of Rights (University of Adelaide Press, 2012)
When: Wednesday, 28 March 2012, 5:30pm for 5:45pm
Where: Ira Raymond Room, Barr Smith Library North Terrace Campus, The University of Adelaide
The book will be launched by: The Hon John Doyle AC Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia
The Chief Justice will be introduced by: Professor Geoffrey Lindell AM Adelaide Law School RSVP by email to press@adelaide.edu.au or by phone to (08) 8313 4371.
For more information or to purchase the book, please click here.
Past Events
2011 RUSSLR Oration Rights, Resistance and Revolution: Protestant Contributions to Western Rights Talk
On Wednesday, 20 July, Professor John Witte, Jr, delivered the 2011 RUSSLR Oration entitled 'Rights, Resistance and Revolution: Protestant Contributions to Western Rights Talk.' Professor Witte, the Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Alonzo L McDonald Distinguished Professor, and Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, USA, is a member of the International Advisory Board of The University of Adelaide Research Unit for the Study of Society, Law and Religion (RUSSLR).
The 2011 Oration, delivered before a large gathering of RUSSLR members and friends of the Adelaide Law School addressed the topical issue of rights, resistance and revolution. Arguing that rights talk is deeply rooted in Jewish, Classical and Christian sources, Professor Witte explored the vital contribution of early modern Protestants who wove these earlier teachings into a theory of fundamental inalienable rights whose breach by a tyrant was cause for revolution. Professor Witte also considered the implications of this history for a new theory and history of rights.
The 2011 RUSSLR Oration was co-hosted by RUSSLR, the Adelaide Law School, ATF Press, and St Peter's Anglican Cathedral. For further information contact Dr Paul Babie, Director of RUSSLR <paul.babie@adelaide.edu.au>
Law and Religion in Traditional and Contemporary China
RUSSLR and The Asian Studies Association of Australia will host a presentation on the nature of law and religion in traditional and contemporary China and explore how far the interactions between law and religion are different in the traditional and contemporary ages in China. It will look into the factors that may explain the similarities or contribute to the dissimilarities.
Speaker: Associate Professor Benny Tai Yiu Ting, University of Hong Kong.
Benny Y. T. Tai, Associate Professor, specializes in constitutional law, administrative law, law & governance, law & politics and law & religion. He has been an Associate Dean of the Faculty of Law between 2000 and 2008.
His major publications include: “The advent of substantive legitimate expectations in Hong Kong: two competing visions” (2002) Public Law 688-702; “Chapter One of Hong Kong’s New Constitution: Constitutional Positioning and Repositioning,” in Ming Chan and Alvin Y. So (ed.) Crisis and Transformation of China's Hong Kong (M.E. Sharpe, 2002); “One Principle...Two Principles...3,4,5,6,7,8,9 Factors for Constitutional Reform,” in Johannes Chan and Lison Harris (eds.), Hong Kong's Constitutional Debate, 2005, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Law Journal Limited, 2005), pp15-28; “Developing an Index of the Rule of Law: Sharing the Experience of Hong Kong” (2007) 2 Asian Journal of Comparative Law89-109; “Basic Law, Basic Politics: The Constitutional Game of Hong Kong” (2007) 37 HKLJ 503-578; “An Unexpected Chapter Two of Hong Kong’s Constitution: New Players and New Strategies” in Ming Sing (ed.) Politics and Government in Hong Kong: Crisis under Chinese Sovereignty (Routledge, 2008); “Religious Faith, Language Games and Public Discourse” in Kang, Yeung and Leung (eds.), Religious Values and the Public Forum: Public Religion, an East-West Dialogue, (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2008).
His current research projects include “The Rule of Law and Legal Culture,” “Political Legitimacy and the Development of Constitutionalism,” “Law in Governance Processes,” “Law and Deliberation,” and “Law and Religion: A Comparative Study”.
In 1997, he was awarded University Teaching Fellow by the University of Hong Kong. In 2002, he was awarded a Certificate of Merit in the IT in Education Awards Contest conducted by the Academic Council for IT in Education, University of Hong Kong. Benny is very active in promoting civic education in the community. He has been the member of the Committee on the Promotion of Civil Education, Hong Kong Government for eight years (1995-2003). He has also served on many government/public bodies including the Consultative Committee for the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1988-90), the Bilingual Laws Advisory Committee (1995-2003) and part-time member of the Central Policy Unit, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (2007).
Chair: Dr Paul Babie, Director, Research Unit for the Study of Society, Law
and Religion.
Date: 6 July 2010
Time: 2.00PM-3.30PM
Venue: University of Adelaide, Ligertwood Building (Law School), Lecture Theatre 1
RUSSLR Director Speaks at Conference in Malaysia
Dr Paul Babie, RUSSLR Director, delivered a paper at the recent "Religion, Law and Governance in South East Asia; Comparative Legal Perspectives" Conference, in Kuala Lumpur, 29-31 January 2010. The paper was entitled "Choice, Relationship and Community; Private Property and how the Monotheistic Religions and Foster Cooperation".
For further information please click here and here.
RUSSLR Delegates Speak at Council for a Parliament of World Religions
On 7-9 December, 2009, Dr Paul Babie and Peter Burdon attended the Council for a Parliament of World Religions. The Parliament was first held in Chicago in 1893, and brings together the world’s religious and spiritual communities, their leaders and their followers to a gathering where peace, diversity and sustainability are discussed and explored in the context of interreligious understanding and cooperation.
On the 7 of December they delivered a joint paper entitled 'Private Property, Religion and the Environment'. The abstract for their paper read:
Climate change is a private property problem. Specifically, the presently dominant model of private property, implemented and operating in legal systems worldwide, prioritises self-interest over obligation towards the community. This presentation argues that this underpins and makes possible those human activities which lead to ecological destruction. Yet climate change is more than a legal or a political issue. It is also a moral and spiritual challenge, which requires the application of spiritual or religious thought as part of the solution. The presenters will offer two unique solutions to this problem. Dr Babie will draw on both monotheistic and polytheistic traditions in arguing for a private property model which places community obligation in the hands of individuals who enjoy the protection of private property over goods and resources. Obligation thus becomes an individual matter of choice and decision. Mr Burdon will argue that private property is fundamentally anthropocentric, and drawing on the work of ‘geologian’ Fr Thomas Berry, will present ideas from an emerging field of law termed Earth JurisprudenceRUSSLR Delegates Speak at International Law and Religion Symposium
On 4-7 October 2009 Dr Paul Babie, RUSSLR Director, and Neville Rochow SC, RUSSLR Research Associate, attended the 16th Annual BYU, J Reuben Clark Law School, International Law and Religion Symposium in Provo, Utah. On 5 October they delivered a joint paper entitled 'Feels Like Déjà vu: Religious Freedom and a Proposed Australian Bill of Rights'. For further information click here.
For photo's please view our picture gallery:
Gallery 1, Gallery 2, Gallery 3, Gallery 4
Earth Jurisprudence Conference
From the 16-18 October 2009, over 60 people from each state and territory in Australia attended Australia's first conference on Earth Jurisprudence. Earth Jurisprudence is an emerging theory of law that seeks to evolve law to recognize that human being exist as one equal part of a broader living system. The conference was jointly partnered by RUSSLR, organized by management team member Peter Burdon and included a presentation by RUSSLR director Dr Paul Babie.
Cultural and Religious Freedom Under a Bill of Rights Canberra: 13–15 August, 2009
On 13-15 August 2009, the BYU International Center of Law and Religion Studies and RUSSLR hosted a major conference on cultural and religious freedom under a bill of rights. The conference organizers are currently preparing a selection of the papers for possible publication in an edited volume. Please watch this site for further updates.
The first session of the conference was broadcast on ABC Radio National, The Spirit of Things, with Rachel Kohn on 23 August 2009. Further, Professor Robert Blitt of the University of Tennessee College of Law, who was a keynote panellist at the conference, recently gave the following interview on the The Spirit of Things.
Conference papers are available here.
Law School at Leading Edge of Research
The University of Adelaide Research Unit for the Study of Society, Law and Religion (RUSSLR), was launched on November 13th. RUSSLR is the first centre or institute in Australia to study the relationship between society, law and religion – putting it at the leading edge in Australia of what is already a major research area worldwide.
Dr Paul Babie, Associate Dean of Law (Research) in the School of Law, is the inaugural Director of this Research Unit. The RUSSLR was launched by Professor James McWha, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Adelaide and the key address was provided by Dr Michael Spence, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Sydney.
View photos from this event online at Development and Alumni's Flickr Gallery.
To view the speech of RUSSLR Director, Dr Paul Babie, click here.
To view the speech of Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Sydney, Dr Michael Spence, click here. For audio click here.
