Research

People	Research
Paul Babie	Paul is an active and widely published researcher, working mainly on law and religion, especially the intersection of private property theory and Christian theology and the nature of religious law. He is currently writing a book for UBC Press in Canada which draws together his research interests entitled Private Property, Climate Change and the Children of Abraham. He is an expert in the history of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Australia and the canon law of the Eparchy for Ukrainian Catholics for Australia, New Zealand and Oceania; he regularly consults on these matters. In 2004, Paul was ordained a Priest of the Ukrainian Catholic Church of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, in which capacity he currently holds several positions: Chair of the Eparchial Statutes Review and Canon Law Committee and Canon Law Adviser to the Eparch; Consultor and Secretary of the College of Eparchial Consultors and the Eparchial Presbyteral Council; Legal Member of the Eparchial Financial Committee; Canon Law Advisor, Chief Constitutional Draftsperson, and Eparchial Representative to the Eastern Catholic Bishops Forum of Australia; and, Member of the Eparchial Liturgical Committee.
Ngaire Naffine	Professor Naffine is currently in the first of a three year project looking at the regulation of consent to use of embryos and organs. Religious issues are very central to this work. She is also completing a book manuscript on the influence of religion on the conception of the person as duty bearer. Her future research may include asking why churches are given the right to intervene in judicial cases and why representatives of religions are often included on committees, such as ethics committees. Generally, she is interested in the scholarly study of the secular.
Ian Leader-Elliott	Assoc Prof Leader-Elliott is interested in the nature of rules about public discourse and the study of the parameters of public debate, particularly as that relates to the role of religion.
Rosemary Owens	Professor Owens is interested in equality/anti-discrimination issues in workplace and exemptions for religion found in anti-discrimination legislation. She is also interested in the European approach to labour law, itself strongly influenced by Leo XIII’s 1893 Rerum Novarum, and its relationship to what is meant by a decent life.
Nigel Wilson	Nigel Wilson's research interests relevant to RUSSLR's activities include: Regulating the Information Age - How will we cope with technological change? Human Rights and the Right to Privacy The Workplace of the Future Privacy and the Rise of Confucianism in China Digital Forensics and Evidence Customs, spirituality and religious communications Identity, privacy and data-mining Tort Law - Role of Pragmatism, Policy and Principle in the Duty of Care Consumer Protection for Remote and Vulnerable Communities Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility Estoppel, Equity and Unconscionability Insurance Law, Professional Liability Law and Legal Ethics Protecting Trust and Security Technologies Principles-based and Risk-based Regulation Takaful - Insurance from an Islamic perspective The Law of Virtual Worlds and Social Networks Digital Divides - Bridging the Gaps and Fostering Digital Opportunity
John Williams	Professor Williams’ research includes an interest in Section 116 of the Australian Constitution and the role of religion in public life, religious persecution, the role of the State in litigating establishment issues, and the intersection between free-speech and freedom of religion.
John Keeler	Professor Keeler is interested in the fundamental constitutional issue of defining religion and the economics and politics of social security.
Pataporn Sukontamarn	Dr Sukontamarn's research focuses on Islamic schools and how Islamic organisations impact on women.
John Gava	Associate Professor Gava has interests understanding the way that religion influenced the development of the common law. He is also interested in the question ‘why are people good?’; is this to do with evolution, utilitarianism or can it be attributed to something religious or spiritual?
Alex Reilly	Associate Professor Reilly is interested in the State's understanding of religion (including its legal definition) and what this understanding means for the separation of church and state in government law and policy. To what extent, for example, can the State explicitly or implicitly encourage or discourage religious ideas. He is interested in this question in relation to the State's role in the provision of education, and in laws against terrorism. He is also interested in the theory and practice of legal pluralism, including the extent to which it is plausible to owe allegiance to the law of the State and religious law.
Peter Burdon	Peter is currently completing his LLM at the University of Adelaide and has a strong reserach interest in property, environmental, minerals and energy and native title law. His research interests also include the role of spiritual wisdom in helping our current environmental crisis and for a more equitable society.
Samer Akkach	Samer Akkach is Reader in architectural history and theory at the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, and Founding Director of the Centre for Asian and Middle Easter Architecture at The University of Adelaide, Australia. He is an intellectual historian and architectural theoretician with expertise in Islamic religion and culture and in Islamic art and architecture. He has a special interest in Islamic cosmology in the pre- and post-Copernican periods. For several years he has been working on the religious, socio-urban and intellectual histories of Damascus in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, focusing on the life and works of an eminent figure of the city, ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi. His recent major works include The Correspondence of ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (1641-1731) (forthcoming, Brill 2009), ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi: Islam and the Enlightenment (Oneworld 2007), Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas (SUNY 2005), and the “The Poetics of Concealment: al-Nabulusi’s Encounter with the Dome of the Rock,” Muqarnas 22 (November 2005), 110-127. He is the editor of De-Placing Difference: Architecture, Culture and Imaginative Geography, (Adelaide: CAMEA, 2002, 2nd ed. 2006), and Self, Place and Imagination: Cross-Cultural Thinking in Architecture (Adelaide: CAMEA, 1999, 2nd ed. 2001). Samer has lectured widely in the Middle East, Europe, North America, Canada, South East Asia, China and Australia, held visiting research fellowship at MIT, and is currently the leading Chief Investigator on a large research project funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), Islam, Modernity and the Enlightenment: A New Perspective (2006-2008).