Public Lecture
"Is Circumcision a Crime?: A critique of the legal regulation of genital cutting in Germany and Australia"
When: Thursday, 13 September 2012 at 1.00-2.00pm
Where: Moot Court Room, Adelaide Law School, Ligertwood Building, The University of Adelaide
Presenters: Anne Hewitt & Cornelia Koch, Adelaide Law School, The University of Adelaide
Past Events
"Religious Majorities and Restrictions on Religion"
When: Tuesday, 10 July 2012 at 12.15pm
Where: Edgeloe Room, Mitchell Building, The University of Adelaide
Speaker: Professor Brett Scharffs is Francis R Kirkham Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University and Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies.
“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.
'After Falwell: Shifts and Continuities in American Religion and Culture Wars in the Obama Era'
When: Wednesday, 1 September 2010 at 1.00-2.00pm
Where: University of Adelaide, Ligertwood Building (Law School), Moot Court Room
Speaker: John Dombrink, Department of Criminology, Law & Society University of California, Irvine (USA). John Dombrink is a sociologist, and professor in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society at the University of California, Irvine. He is the co-author of The Last Resort: Success and Failure in Campaigns for Casinos (1990); Dying Right: The Death With Dignity Movement (2001); and Sin No More: From Abortion to Stem Cells -- Understanding Crime, Law and Morality in America (2007). His ongoing research examines “morality contests” and religious conservatism in American culture, and assesses the status of American laws and attitudes toward the sphere of personal morality. His current project: “After the Culture War? America in the Obama Era,” examines the competing themes of normalization of the core culture war issues (abortion, same-sex marriage, aid-in-dying, stem cell research) against the contemporary backlash, resistance and “tea parties.” It will provide an assessment of the status of social and religious conservatism in America and a measure of the vitality of the culture wars.
'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: TBA
‘Back to Russia? The Ukrainian Presidential Elections of 2010’
When: Tuesday, 9 March 2010 at 1.00pm
Where: Moot Court Room, Ligertwood Building, Law School
Speaker: David R. Marples is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History & Classics and director of the Stasiuk Program on Contemporary Ukraine at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. He is author of thirteen single-authored books and two edited books on topics ranging from Chornobyl to Stalinism in Ukraine, contemporary Belarus and the collapse of the Soviet Union. His articles have appeared in Slavic Review, Europe-Asia Studies, Nationalities Papers, Eurasian Geography & Economics, Post-Soviet Affairs, and others. He is Vice-President of the North American Association of Belarusian Studies; and a board member of the Association for the Study of Nationalities and the Forum for Democracy in Belarus, German Marshall Fund of the United States. He is an editorial board member of several journals, including Canadian Slavonic Papers, Nationalities Papers, and the Journal of Ukrainian Studies. At the University of Alberta, he was awarded the Faculty Research Prize for Full Professors in 1999; the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research (university research prize) in 2003, Killam Annual Professorship in 2005-06, and the University Cup (the highest award) in 2008.
Synopsis: The lecture examines the results of the Ukrainian presidential elections of 17 January and 7 February 2010 and offers an assessment of the likely consequences for Ukraine. Will Ukraine, as some media report, mend its relations with Russia to form a new, close partnership that will return it to the late Kuchma era? Will Ukraine abandon its pro-Western policy and aspirations to join NATO? What will the victory of Viktor Yanukovych mean for its relationship with the European Union? How will the new president deal with the parliament? How will Ukraine try to extricate itself from the economic crisis? Do regional voting and widely disparate attitudes mean that there are in reality ‘two Ukraines’?
Previous Lectures 2009
Islam and Moral Regulation in Indonesia: An End in Sight?”
When: Wednesday, 21 October 2009 at 1.00pm
Where: Moot Court Room, Ligertwood Building, Law School
Speaker:Tim Lindsey is Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Asian Law Centre and Foundation Director of the Centre for Islamic Law and Society in the Melbourne Law School. He is also an ARC Federation Fellow, leading a 5-year research program titled “Islam and Modernity: Syari'ah, Terrorism and Governance in South-East Asia". He is Chair of the Australia Indonesia Institute and a founding editor of the Australian Journal of Asian Law. Tim's recent publications include ‘Indonesia: Law and Society’, ‘Corruption in Asia’ (with Howard Dick), ‘Chinese Indonesians: Remembering, Distorting, Forgetting’ (with Helen Pausacker) and ‘Law Reform in Developing and Transitional States'. He is currently completing a three book series on Islam and laws in Southeast Asia.
Synopsis:Indonesia's democratisation and decentralisation in the wake of Soeharto's resignation in May 1998 ended three decades of state repression of public expressions of Islamic identity. The result was a dramatic reassertion of Islamic politics and 'Syariahisation' as it is known in Indonesia: attempts to legislate norms derived from Islamic traditions, at both local and national levels, including in Aceh. These attempts have typically been socially conservative and highly controversial, and the best known cases relate to pornography, sexuality and moral regulation. They have provoked debate, protests and sometimes violence, and women and minority groups have been targets of legal harassment and violence. So far, however, the government has been careful to avoid intervention in this controversy, even if that means neglecting its legal responsibilities. Professor Lindsey will argue, however, that despite the debate they have provoked, the proponents of legal Islamisation have been largely unsuccessful in achieving their decades-old objectives of enforcing a conservative interpretation of Syari’ah, and the tide may now be turning against them.
“A Tale of Two Statutes: A Comparison of Ontario’s and South Australia’s Pioneering Legislation for the Incorporation of Religious Bodies”
When: Tuesday, 25 August, 2009 at 12 noon
Where: Moot Court Room, Ligertwood Building, Law School
Speaker: Dr Greg Taylor is an Associate Professor at Monash University Law School. Born and educated in South Australia, he has made South Australian legal history one of his specialties. In the second half of 2008, he was a Visiting Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, and his talk will be based on research done there and in Adelaide.
Synopsis: Both South Australia and Ontario passed statutes in the middle third of the nineteenth century providing for religious bodies to attain the status of legally recognised corporations. Despite this similarity of object between the two statutes, the background in each British colony was very different and reflects the different self-image of each colony. Ontario also made very heavy weather of its statute, taking six years to pass it, while South Australia’s passed almost without any dispute at all, and very quickly. This talk will explore those differences and thus show that what appeared natural and unarguable to South Australians and Ontarians in the nineteenth century was not in either case.
“Protecting Religious Freedom: Two Counterintuitive Dialectics in U.S. Free Exercise Jurisprudence” and "A Comparative Framework for Conceptualizing Church-State Relationships"
When: Monday, 17 August 2009 at 1.15pm
Where: Moot Court Room, Ligertwood Building, Law School
Speakers:
W. Cole Durham, Jr. is Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University and Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies. He is a member of the OSCE/ODIHR’s Advisory Council on Freedom of Religion or Belief; is a Vice President of the International Academy for Freedom of Religion and Belief, serves as an advisory member of Church-State centers at DePaul and Baylor Universities; and has testified before the United States Congress on religious intolerance in Europe and on the Religious Liberty Protection Act. He has written (with Noel Reynolds) Religious Liberty in Western Thought, and (with Silvio Ferrari) Law and Religion in Post-Communist Europe. He is also the author of numerous law review articles dealing with religious liberty and other comparative law themes.
Brett G. Scharffs is Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University and Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies. His teaching and scholarly interests include law and religion, philosophy of law, and international business law. Professor Scharffs is widely published in these areas, and is currently finishing two books, Law and the Limits of Logic, and Law and Religion: U.S., International, and Comparative Perspectives (co-written with Professor Durham).
The Honourable Judge J. Clifford Wallace, Senior Circuit Judge and Emeritus Chief Judge, United States Court Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, will offer a brief response to the presentations of Professors Durham and Scharffs.
Synopsis:
"Protecting Religious Freedom: Two Counterintuitive Dialectics in U.S. Free Exercise Jurisprudence": Professor Scharffs will address two important dialectics regarding freedom of religion in the United States. The first is the dialectic between freedom and equality in interpreting the meaning of free exercise. The second is the dialectic between courts and legislatures in the protection of religious freedom. The paper will query what, if any, light this may shed on the current debate in Australia about the merits of an Australian Bill (or Charter) of Rights.
"A Comparative Framework for Conceptualizing Church-State Relationships": Professor Durham will discuss an innovative schematic for conceptualizing the relationship between the degree of religious freedom in a society and the degree of identification between religion and the state. Contrary to our initial expectations there is not a simple correlation between non-identification and religious freedom, and a high degree of identification and an absence of religious freedom. The paper concludes with the introduction and defence of a new conceptual framework for thinking about these relationships.
“Using Human Rights Legislation to Control Hate Speech”
When:
Monday, 18 May 2009 at 1.00pm
Where:
Moot Court Room, Ligertwood Building, Law School
Speaker:
Bruce Elman, BSc (McGill), LLB (Dal), LLM (Harvard) is Dean of Law at the University of Windsor (Canada). Previously, Dean Elman was Belzberg Professor of Constitutional Law and Chair of the Centre for Constitutional Studies at the Faculty of Law, University of Alberta. Dean Elman has been Visiting Professor of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1988-1989 and 1995-1996) and Visiting Professor at Niigata University in Japan (1994). Dean Elman has published numerous works on various topics including criminal law, the law of evidence, constitutional reform, The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, hate speech, multiculturalism, and human rights.
Synopsis:
In 1970, Canada criminalized hate speech in amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada. Yet, in the past 39 years, very few prosecutions have been brought under these provisions. The federal government and the provinces of Canada have, alternatively, attempted to deal with hate speech through provisions in the Canadian Human Rights Act and its provincial counterparts. Over the past few years, this strategy has been called into question as a result of a number of high profile cases as well as an Advisory report to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. This lecture traces the history of Canadian attempts to combat hate speech through both the criminal law and the various human rights regimes. He will analyze the results of those attempts and comment on the appropriateness of using human rights legislation to control racist speech.
“The Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933: Was it Genocide?”
When:
Tuesday, 24 March 2009 at 5.30pm
Where:
Lecture Theatre One, Ligertwood Building, Law School
Speaker:
Dr Roman Serbyn is Professor Emeritus of History, Université du Québec à Montréal (Montreal, Canada). Professor Serbyn received a PhD degree in History from McGill University in 1975 and taught Russian and East European history at Université du Québec à Montréal from 1969-2002.
Synopsis:
The Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933 is no longer denied; indeed, the Soviet Communist regime’s responsibility for it is now generally recognized. What is still debated among scholars and politicians, however, is whether it qualifies as genocide according to the definition of that crime contained in the UN Convention on Genocide and the analysis of the Ukrainian Famine offered by Raphael Lemkin, the legal expert who coined and conceptualized the term “genocide’. In this lecture, Professor Serbyn argues that the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians was part of Stalin’s regime’s intent to destroy the Ukrainian nation, as such, by physically eliminating its national elites, exterminating a major part of its population, and transforming the rest of the Ukrainian population into obedient cogs of his totalitarian machine. The criminal intent and the national identity of the targeted group are borne out by the newly revealed Soviet documents housed in Russian and Ukrainian archives.
