New Australian bill will limit some foreign ties

Significance The bill went through its first reading the same day, with no amendments tabled by the opposition. The bill will now be considered by the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, with the second reading expected in November. Impacts Other governments with concerns about foreign interference at sub-national level may follow Australia’s example. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, facing budget and personnel cuts, may struggle to meet new oversight needs. Affected foreign governments may lobby state/territory governments and universities to oppose the bill. The planned public register of these arrangements will allow for more third-party assessment of these often undisclosed deals.

The Contraband Slave Trade to Brazil and the Dynamics of US Participation, 1831–1856

This article explores the US contribution to the illegal transatlantic slave trade to Brazil and the tensions generated by this hemispheric connection in the mid-nineteenth century. It combines qualitative and quantitative approaches, based on diplomatic records and Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, in order to assess the size and variety of forms of US participation in the traffic to Brazil. More generally, the article examines the tensions caused by the rise of abolitionism and the limits to the enforcement of anti-slave trade legislation in the free trade international environment that emerged after the Napoleonic Wars. By framing the attitudes of the US government within a broader Atlantic context, this work shows why certain forms of US participation in the contraband slave trade (such as providing US-built ships) became more predominant than others (such as directly financing and organising slave voyages) by the mid-nineteenth century.