International Academy of Comparative Law
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Transcript Prepared from an Audio Recording]
THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION CENTER FOR EAST ASIA POLICY STUDIES HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA: AN ADDRESS BY MICHAEL KIRBY The Honorable Michael Kirby Chair, United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea The Brookings Institution April 14, 2014 Washington, DC [Transcript prepared from an audio recording] ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 PARTICIPANTS: Introduction: TED PICCONE Acting Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy The Brookings Institution Featured Speaker: MICHAEL KIRBY Chair United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea Discussant: MARCUS NOLAND Executive Vice President and Director of Research Peterson Institute for International Economics Moderator: RICHARD BUSH Senior Fellow and Chen-Fi and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies Director, Center for East Asia Policy Studies The Brookings Institution Closing Remarks: ROBERTA COHEN Co-Chair, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement The Brookings Institution P R O C E E D I N G S TED PICCONE: Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Brookings. I’m Ted Piccone. I’m the acting vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program here and I’m very pleased to welcome you for this event on human rights in North Korea, which is co-hosted by our Center for East Asia Policy Studies and the Committee on Human Rights in North Korea. And special thanks to Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director - - where did Greg go? There you are -- for your partnership on this event. -
Herbert Vere Evatt, the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights After 60 Years
238 (2009) 34 UWA LAW REVIEW Herbert Vere Evatt, the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights After 60 Years MICHAEL KIRBY AC CMG* ERBERT VERE EVATT was a product of public schools. He attended Fort HStreet Boys’ High School in Sydney, the oldest public school in Australia, as I later did. That school has refl ected the ethos of public education in Australia: free, compulsory and secular. These values infl uenced Evatt’s values as they did my own.1 As an Australian lawyer, Evatt stood out. He was a Justice of the High Court of Australia for 10 years in the 1930s. However, his greatest fame was won by his leadership role in the formation of the United Nations and in the adoption of its Charter in 1945. He was elected the third President of the General Assembly. He was in the chair of the Assembly, on 10 December 1948, when it voted to accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).2 It is 60 years since that resolution of 1948. In the imagination of immature schoolchildren, like me, in the 1940s and 1950s, the Hiroshima cloud was imprinted on our consciousness. We knew (perhaps more than Australians do today) how important it was for the survival of the human species that the United Nations should be effective, including in the attainment of the values expressed in its new UDHR. When I arrived at high school in 1951, Evatt was honoured as a famous alumnus. By then, he was no longer a judge or Federal minister. -
The Hon. Michael D. Kirby AC CMG
AA SUBMISSION 247 The Hon. Michael D. Kirby AC CMG 31 July 2019 The Chairman and Members, Economy and Infrastructure Committee, Legislative Council, Parliament House, Spring Street, EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002 By email: [email protected] Dear Chairman and Members, I express respects to the Parliament of Victoria, the Legislative Council of Victoria and the Committee on Economy and Infrastructure. 2. I express thanks for the opportunity that has been provided to members of the public to make submissions to the Inquiry into the impact of animal rights activism on Victorian agriculture. This is my subm ission. 3. Between 1996 and 2009 I served as a Justice of the High Court of Australia. Prior to that, I served as President of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. I have undertaken national and international responsibilities, including for the United Nations Organisation, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Commission of Jurists. At present I am serving as the Co-Chair of the Human Rig hts Institute of the International Bar Association, based in London. However, the present submissions are made in a personal capacity and no reliance is placed upon my previous judicial or other appointments. 4. Since 2011, I have served as a Patron of Voiceless. This is an animal welfare organisation and a civil society body established in Sydney, New South Wales. However, this submission is not made on behalf of Voiceless, although I bel ieve it would generally conform to the views and opinions of members of Voiceless. -
Review Essay Open Chambers: High Court Associates and Supreme Court Clerks Compared
REVIEW ESSAY OPEN CHAMBERS: HIGH COURT ASSOCIATES AND SUPREME COURT CLERKS COMPARED KATHARINE G YOUNG∗ Sorcerers’ Apprentices: 100 Years of Law Clerks at the United States Supreme Court by Artemus Ward and David L Weiden (New York: New York University Press, 2006) pages i–xiv, 1–358. Price A$65.00 (hardcover). ISBN 0 8147 9404 1. I They have been variously described as ‘junior justices’, ‘para-judges’, ‘pup- peteers’, ‘courtiers’, ‘ghost-writers’, ‘knuckleheads’ and ‘little beasts’. In a recent study of the role of law clerks in the United States Supreme Court, political scientists Artemus Ward and David L Weiden settle on a new metaphor. In Sorcerers’ Apprentices: 100 Years of Law Clerks at the United States Supreme Court, the authors borrow from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s famous poem to describe the transformation of the institution of the law clerk over the course of a century, from benign pupilage to ‘a permanent bureaucracy of influential legal decision-makers’.1 The rise of the institution has in turn transformed the Court itself. Nonetheless, despite the extravagant metaphor, the authors do not set out to provide a new exposé on the internal politics of the Supreme Court or to unveil the clerks (or their justices) as errant magicians.2 Unlike Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong’s The Brethren3 and Edward Lazarus’ Closed Chambers,4 Sorcerers’ Apprentices is not pitched to the public’s right to know (or its desire ∗ BA, LLB (Hons) (Melb), LLM Program (Harv); SJD Candidate and Clark Byse Teaching Fellow, Harvard Law School; Associate to Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG, High Court of Aus- tralia, 2001–02. -
Process, but Also Assumes a Role in the Administration of the Court
Mason process, but also assumes a role in the administration of the Court. Frank Jones Mason, Anthony Frank (b 21 April 1925; Justice 1972–87; Chief Justice 1987–95) was a member of the High Court for 23 years and is regarded by many as one of Australia’s great- est judges, as important and influential as Dixon.The ninth Chief Justice,he presided over a period ofsignificant change in the Australian legal system, his eight years as Chief Justice having been described as among the most exciting and important in the Court’s history. Mason grew up in Sydney, where he attended Sydney Grammar School. His father was a surveyor who urged him to follow in his footsteps; however, Mason preferred to follow in the footsteps of his uncle, a prominent Sydney KC. After serving with the RAAF as a flying officer from 1944 to 1945, he enrolled at the University of Sydney, graduating with first-class honours in both law and arts. Mason was then articled with Clayton Utz & Co in Sydney, where he met his wife Patricia, with whom he has two sons. He also served as an associate to Justice David Roper of the Supreme Court of NSW. He moved to the Sydney Bar in 1951, where he was an unqualified success, becoming one of Barwick’s favourite junior counsel. Mason’s practice was primarily in equity and commercial law,but he also took on a number ofconstitutional and appellate cases. After only three years at the Bar, he appeared before the High Court in R v Davison (1954), in which he successfully persuaded the Bench that certain sections of the Bankruptcy Act 1924 (Cth) invalidly purported to confer Anthony Mason, Justice 1972–87, Chief Justice 1987–95 in judicial power upon a registrar of the Bankruptcy Court. -
The University of Western Australia Law Review: the First Seventy Years
1 THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA LAW REVIEW: THE FIRST SEVENTY YEARS MICHAEL BLAKENEY* I FOUNDATION The two oldest Australian university law journals are the UWA Law Review and the Queensland University Law Review, both founded in 1948. In his foreword to the first issue of the UWA Law Review the Hon. Sir John Dwyer, Chief Justice of Western Australia, noting the coming of age of the School of Law in the University of Western Australia, which had been established in 1927 and explained that “now in the enthusiasm of early maturity it has planned the publication of an Annual Law Review of a type and on a scale not hitherto attempted in any Australian University.” The Chief Justice in his foreword identified the desirable objectives of the Law Review. He wrote: It is too much to-day to expect statutory recognition, prompt and adequate, by legislatures almost exclusively preoccupied with economic questions. It is necessary to have a considerable body of informed opinion to show the needs and point the way; and the creation of such a body depends in turn on an explanation and understanding of our institutions, an exposition of the underlying principles of our laws and customs, an examination of their moral sources, a comparison with other legal systems, a criticism_ of applications and interpretations that may appear to be dubious. There is no better mode of achieving such ends than a Review devoted to such purposes, and this first number is a satisfactory step in the right direction. The example set in 1948 by the Universities of Western Australia and Queensland in establishing their law reviews was followed by the University of Sydney in 1953, when it established the Sydney Law Review and in 1957 with the establishment of the Melbourne University Law Review; the University of Tasmania Law Review in 1958; the Adelaide Law Review in 1960 and the Australian National University’s Federal Law Review in 1964. -
Who's That with Abrahams
barTHE JOURNAL OF THE NSWnews BAR ASSOCIATION | SUMMER 2008/09 Who’s that with Abrahams KC? Rediscovering Rhetoric Justice Richard O’Connor rediscovered Bullfry in Shanghai | CONTENTS | 2 President’s column 6 Editor’s note 7 Letters to the editor 8 Opinion Access to court information The costs circus 12 Recent developments 24 Features 75 Legal history The Hon Justice Foster The criminal jurisdiction of the Federal The Kyeema air disaster The Hon Justice Macfarlan Court NSW Law Almanacs online The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina The Hon Justice Ward Saving St James Church 40 Addresses His Honour Judge Michael King SC Justice Richard Edward O’Connor Rediscovering Rhetoric 104 Personalia The current state of the profession His Honour Judge Storkey VC 106 Obituaries Refl ections on the Federal Court 90 Crossword by Rapunzel Matthew Bracks 55 Practice 91 Retirements 107 Book reviews The Keble Advocacy Course 95 Appointments 113 Muse Before the duty judge in Equity Chief Justice French Calderbank offers The Hon Justice Nye Perram Bullfry in Shanghai Appearing in the Commercial List The Hon Justice Jagot 115 Bar sports barTHE JOURNAL OF THE NSWnews BAR ASSOCIATION | SUMMER 2008-09 Bar News Editorial Committee Cover the New South Wales Bar Andrew Bell SC (editor) Leonard Abrahams KC and Clark Gable. Association. Keith Chapple SC Photo: Courtesy of Anthony Abrahams. Contributions are welcome and Gregory Nell SC should be addressed to the editor, Design and production Arthur Moses SC Andrew Bell SC Jeremy Stoljar SC Weavers Design Group Eleventh Floor Chris O’Donnell www.weavers.com.au Wentworth Chambers Duncan Graham Carol Webster Advertising 180 Phillip Street, Richard Beasley To advertise in Bar News visit Sydney 2000. -
Poetry and Public Law
Poetry and Public Law New South Wales Bar Constitutional & Administrative Law Branch Annual Dinner Chief Justice Robert French AC 7 November 2013, Sydney Tonight being a dinner event, and tomorrow being a special leave day, none of our interests would be served by a scholarly discussion of the Court's most recent offerings on the role of rationality in administrative law, proportionality in the application of the implied freedom of political communication, or even the scope of jurisdictional error. Instead of those things, I thought it might be good to talk about poetry and to forge the necessary linkage to your interests by entitling this presentation 'Poetry and Public Law'. The inspiration for this topic was, in part, the life and work of the late John Bray, former Chief Justice of South Australia, in whose honour I delivered an oration in Adelaide a fortnight ago. He was both judge and poet, although as he once lamented: Poetry lacks social cachet.1 Bray's poetic talents reflected a literary skill which, without having to resort to verse, he deployed in his judgments. Michael Kirby said of him: Some people have the power to express themselves in vivid word pictures. Not all of them are poets. Only a small proportion of them are lawyers. But when to discontent 1 John Bray, 'The History of Poetry in South Australia; in Barbara Wall and Douglas Muecke (eds) The Emperor's Doorkeeper: Occasional Addresses 1955-1987 John Bray (The University of Adelaide Foundation, 1988), 3, 3. 2 with verbal formulae alone is added a very considerable power in the use of language, you have a judicial writer of rare talent. -
What Is Past, Or Passing, Or to Come ___ 10F What Is Past, Or Passing, Or to Come ______
1030 What is Past, or Passing, or to Come ____ 10f What is Past, or Passing, or to Come ______ ~ .... tcllbyby the HOI!HOIl Justice Michael Kirby A.C .. C.M.G., President afthealthe CaUTIo!Caurlo! Appeal afat the 1993 BenchBelich & Bar ',lrlUlerat which he was the guest afhonour.o/honour. ¥. ,!i}fi "Once 0111011I of nature I shall never raketake ~ Mybodi1yjormfrom~f bodilyfarm/rom anyany. natural (hing,rh~lIg. Asprey kept, hanging on the wall of his chambers. behind the B ~f slIcllslIch ajormalarm as Grecian goldsmithsgoldsnllfhs make chair at his desk. the famous cartoon of FE Smith. Next to that dfhammered gold and gold enamelling cartoon was hanging a mirror. Looking in the mirror"it was To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; natural to see oneself as a reflection of the great English Or set upon a golden bOllghbough to sing counsel. "[ To lords and ladies of ByzantiumByz.antium The President of the Incorporated Law Institute (as it O/wlw{OfwiwI is past.past, or passing. or to come." was called) was NormanNonnan Cowper, later to be knighted. Reg WBW B Yeats Downing was the State Auomey~General. The most senior silks were HVH V Evatt himself, his brother CliveCJive and CAC A : ....UTI< PAST Hardwick. Amongst the senior juniors were those memorable figures Wilf Sheppard, Walter Gee, Bertie Wright and On an occasion such as this, and in this common room.room, Humphrey Henchman - the lastofwhom 1I saw, evergreen, in 'ldsinevitableitisineviw,blethatthat an affliction of nostalgia will take the mind this place but a month ago. back through lheme lost years. -
Seeing Visions and Dreaming Dreams Judicial Conference of Australia
Seeing Visions and Dreaming Dreams Judicial Conference of Australia Colloquium Chief Justice Robert French AC 7 October 2016, Canberra Thank you for inviting me to deliver the opening address at this Colloquium. It is the first and last time I will do so as Chief Justice. The soft pink tones of the constitutional sunset are deepening and the dusk of impending judicial irrelevance is advancing upon me. In a few weeks' time, on 25 November, it will have been thirty years to the day since I was commissioned as a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia. The great Australian legal figures who sat on the Bench at my official welcome on 10 December 1986 have all gone from our midst — Sir Ronald Wilson, John Toohey, Sir Nigel Bowen and Sir Francis Burt. Two of my articled clerks from the 1970s are now on the Supreme Court of Western Australia. One of them has recently been appointed President of the Court of Appeal. They say you know you are getting old when policemen start looking young — a fortiori when the President of a Court of Appeal looks to you as though he has just emerged from Law School. The same trick of perspective leads me to see the Judicial Conference of Australia ('JCA') as a relatively recent innovation. Six years into my judicial career, in 1992, I attended a Supreme and Federal Courts Judges' Conference at which Justices Richard McGarvie and Ian Sheppard were talking about the establishment of a body to represent the common interests and concerns of judges, to defend the judiciary as an institution and, where appropriate, to defend individual judges who were the target of unfair and unwarranted criticisms. -
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
UNITED NATIONS OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME SEMINAR ON GOOD GOVERNANCE PRACTICES FOR THE PROMOTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS SEOUL, KOREA, 15 SEPTEMBER 2004 HUMAN RIGHTS - ESSENTIAL FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE The Hon Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG* MEETING IN KOREA It is appropriate to commence these remarks with words of praise for the people of Korea. Our hosts have demonstrated a strong commitment to good governance and human rights. After colonial rule and military rule, unique security problems and economic stress, the Republic of Korea has emerged as a leading example in the region, and the world, of the fact that it is possible to build a strong economy in this region whilst expanding the commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms. * Australia. Laureate of the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights. One- time Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Human Rights in Cambodia. 2. PLANTING IDEAS YOUNG There is no doubt that nurturing good governance is essential to ensuring respect for human rights. Without the rule of law, independent courts and the other institutions of a modern society - essential components of good governance - the promise of human rights may remain just that: a promise unfulfilled. Enforcement of fundamental freedoms when it matters may be impossible. The lesson of history is that transparent, responsible, accountable and participatory governance is a prerequisite to enduring respect for human dignity and the defence of human rights. The idea of the essentially moral commitment to the dignity of each human being, must be planted in the minds of the young. -
The High Court and the Parliament Partners in Law-Making Or Hostile Combatants?*
The High Court and the Parliament Partners in law-making or hostile combatants?* Michael Coper The question of when a human life begins poses definitional and philosophical puzzles that are as familiar as they are unanswerable. It might surprise you to know that the question of when the High Court of Australia came into existence raises some similar puzzles,1 though they are by contrast generally unfamiliar and not quite so difficult to answer. Interestingly, the High Court tangled with this issue in its very first case, a case called Hannah v Dalgarno,2 argued—by Wise3 on one side and Sly4 on the other—on 6 and 10 November 1903, and decided the next day on a date that now positively reverberates with constitutional significance, 11 November.5 * This paper was presented as a lecture in the Department of the Senate Occasional Lecture Series at Parliament House on 19 September 2003. I am indebted to my colleagues Fiona Wheeler and John Seymour for their comments on an earlier draft. 1 See Tony Blackshield and Francesca Dominello, ‘Constitutional basis of Court’ in Tony Blackshield, Michael Coper and George Williams (eds), The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia, South Melbourne, Vic., Oxford University Press, 2001 (hereafter ‘The Oxford Companion’): 136. 2 (1903) 1 CLR 1; Francesca Dominello, ‘Hannah v Dalgarno’ in The Oxford Companion: 316. 3 Bernhard Ringrose Wise (1858–1916) was the Attorney-General for NSW and had been a framer of the Australian Constitution. 4 Richard Sly (1849–1929) was one of three lawyer brothers (including George, a founder of the firm of Sly and Russell), who all had doctorates in law.