Sustainable Development and the United Nations Dialogues

The Earth Summit (1992) heralded what was anticipated to be a new era in environmental regulation with the advent of sustainable development. The concept was based on integrating environmental protection with economic development, supported by specific objectives, such as protection of biodiversity and achievement of intergenerational equity. By the early part of the 21st-century it was apparent that sustainable development had become equated with continuous economic growth, human domination and commodification of nature. This article argues that shortcomings in sustainable development, apparent over the past 25 years, are partly due to the concept’s initial formulation and also attributable to the way the concept has been interpreted and implemented. This validates calls for reconfiguring society’s value systems by better integrating law and policy with Earth-centric principles. The discussion argues that this involves more than tinkering with the key tenets of sustainable development, instead of necessitating their reconceptualisation in accordance with philosophies of Earth jurisprudence.

Limitations of Code in Contracts

Smart contracts have been identified as a potential replacement for traditional written contracts, offering objective and predictable code as a substitute for complicated and impenetrable prose. The inherent complexity in contractual relationships, however, requires agreements to account for a range of often unpredictable circumstances. This complexity also prevented the widespread simplification of legal documents in the wake of the Plain English Movement.

Should Ethical Vegans Have a Beef with the Definition of Religion?

Veganism, where adherents eschew the consumption of animals or their by-products, has seen a substantial increase in popularity in recent years. Vegans who follow the diet for moral or ethical reasons (ethical vegans) have argued in the United States, with limited success and, more recently, in the United Kingdom that they should be protected from discrimination on the grounds of their adherence to ethical veganism, contending that ethical veganism should be subject to similar protections as religion. In the United Kingdom, anti-discrimination legislation protects philosophical beliefs in addition to religion and it was recently held in a preliminary hearing in Casamitjana v The League Against Cruel Sports that ethical veganism falls within the ambit of the relevant statute. The authors examine the situation in the United Kingdom and the United States and conclude that, given that Australian anti-discrimination statutes only refer to religion as a protected attribute, this outcome is unlikely to be replicated since veganism is highly unlikely to meet the current definition of religion.

Universal Values

The 2019 Michael Kirby Justice Oration was delivered on 27 August 2019 by the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom at the College of Law & Justice, Victoria University, Melbourne. What follows is an edited transcript. Note: Full text for this item will be available shortly.

Zelman Cowen

Professor Harry Glasbeek reflects on his relationship with his mentor and Australia's 19th Governor-General, Sir Zelman Cowen.

An Interview with His Honour James Allsop AO, Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia

VULJ Editors Hannah Cook-Tonkin, Pavithra Jayasekera, and William Kleppsch interviewed the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, his Honour James Allsop AO, on 18 October 2018.