ANU Student Journals
Not a member yet
293 research outputs found
Sort by
A challenge to the legitimating rhetoric of legalism through amicus curiae: A comparative case study
Get PDFThis paper begins to address a gap in existing scholarship relating to the role of amicus curiae (meaning ‘friend of the court’) in Australian jurisprudence. Examining a court’s approach to amicus provides insight into judicial decision-making. I suggest that the High Court of Australia’s narrow and guarded approach to amicus reflects its allegiance to a doctrine of legalism. The Court’s approach can be contrasted to the approach of the Supreme Court of the United States, which allows essentially unlimited amicus participation. I explore two key case studies from Australia and the United States: the Tasmanian Dam Case and Massachusetts v Environmental Protection Agency. I suggest that the oral submissions from the Tasmanian Wilderness Society in the Tasmanian Dam Case challenge the High Court of Australia’s professed method of legalism. The High Court of Australia’s resistance to amicus is, I argue, related to the role of legalism as a political strategy to legitimate the Court’s exercise of power. Therefore, a challenge to legalism is consequently a challenge to the Court’s power
Plurinationalism as sovereignty: Challenges of Indigenous recognition in Bolivia
Get PDFPlurinationalism promises to reconcile the complicated colonial histories of Andean states with their modern political realities. However, the disparity between official Bolivian policy and national infrastructure projects exposes the tensions between sovereignties within the plurinational framework. These tensions stem from the underlying relationship between Indigenous autonomy and modern state sovereignty, manifested in both practical and symbolic terms. To make sense of the interplay between these sovereignties, this article analyses how Bolivian policy and politics separate Indigenous groups from the majority population through recognition of Indigenous autonomy. In particular, I examine how the concept of ‘the Border’ informed Bolivian identity discourse in a dispute over a proposed highway construction through Indigenous lands in 2011. I conclude that while plurinationalism offers a political vision of diffused power, it functions to subjugate Indigenous communities within the state structure. In doing so, it propagates the very issues proponents of plurinationalism had hoped to solve.
 
Justifying the Regulation of Corporate Behaviour: A Functional Approach
Get PDFThe traditional justification of the regulation of corporate behaviour (and its extent) was conceptually dependent on the establishment of a theory of the corporation. Although the Law and Economics movement’s championing of shareholder primacy represented the dominant view of corporate law, the increasing influence of the natural entity theory in promoting stakeholder interests and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives makes it difficult to isolate a current prevailing theory. As a result, a better way for justifying the regulation of corporate behaviour lies in a functional examination of the corporation – if corporate behaviour affects stakeholders’ rights and interests in a sufficiently intimate way, some level of regulation is warranted. Regulations exist along a continuum, with self-regulation within an industry at one end (soft law) and explicit government regulation enforceable by the courts at the other (hard law). Due to the abstractness associated with the notion of corporate responsibility, especially in relation to the threshold of sufficient intimacy, soft law initiatives are therefore the most appropriate manner of regulating corporate behaviour in Australia
Dear, Aphro[die]te
Get PDFComplexity encompasses the entirety of social life, which inspired me to utilise artistic forms, specifically sculpture, as a way to explore these ideas. The piece that I created (Figure 1), entitled Dear, Aphro[die]te, is an attempt to unmask our own ignorance surrounding different kinds of privilege, focusing on the enduring nature of gender inequality and the rights of women. This is not a subject that one can fully understand or solve while holding a singular perspective, and so to inspire more analytical thought on this subject, I created a modern tale describing the demise of Aphrodite. In this sense, the complex issue of gender inequality can be experienced in a way that one may not have felt before, allowing for the exploration of different perspectives and patterns of thought, observing the subject with new eyes and creating innovative ways to address gender inequities
Cross-linguistic influence on Chinese-L2 learners’ acquisition of classifiers
Get PDFThis research aims to investigate cross-linguistic influence (CLI) on Chinese-L2 learners’ acquisition of classifiers. So far, limited empirical studies have concerned themselves with how L1 affects second language acquisition (SLA), specifically in relation to the acquisition of classifiers. Although many theories and hypotheses have predicted that L1 contributes both positive and negative effects to L2 acquisition, this current research will scrutinise the reasons this is so. I conducted a picture-based composition via dynamic assessment. Two participants with contrasting L1 backgrounds were chosen: Sally and Yui, from New Zealand and Thailand respectively. Findings suggest that L1 both facilitates and hinders SLA, where reasons can be explained through the L1–L2 similarities and differences in classifier system as well as L1 syntactic transfer. These mixed results demonstrate that language acquisition is, predominantly, a particularly complicated process in which other factors such as the linguistic environment, age of acquisition (AoA) and individual differences must be considered within the overall analysis
The role of human factors in airport baggage screening
Get PDFWe all spend much time visually scanning our surrounding environment. Visual searching is particularly crucial for public safety when it comes to those occasions that can have fatal consequences. Human factors that influence decision-making in target detection are, however, widely considered as determinants for whether there are prohibited items or not. Cognitive performance of security screening can be influenced by the experiences of the searcher, but also can be affected by the task itself, which is closely associated with principles of perception, visual attention and working memory. This paper critically examines five aspects of the searching task: low target salience; the unknown target set; simultaneous search for all types of targets; the possible occurrence of multiple targets; and low target prevalence. It highlights the challenges of baggage screening and proposes two means for improving the accuracy and the efficiency of the task: operational strategies and off-the-job training. Further studies are needed to confirm whether those strategies could strike a balance between efficacy and efficiency for airport baggage screening in a real-life setting
The effects of geographic orientation on shrub microclimates related to Australian pipit nesting
Get PDFRefugia with mild microclimates are central for the survival of many alpine species. Alpine shrubs create microclimates with conditions that can benefit birds, such as the Australian pipit, Anthus novaeseelandiae (Gmelin, 1789). Pipit populations in harsh climates utilise specific behavioural techniques to increase their nesting success: the Snowy Mountains A. novaeseelandiae population nest underneath shrubs at orientations between NNE and SE as identified by Norment and Green (2004). We wanted to determine whether conditions were significantly milder under a shrub between 22° and 125° in orientation. Recordings of abiotic conditions were taken under shrubs in Kosciuszko National Park and then compared to ambient conditions. We found that alpine shrub microclimates are less extreme than ambient conditions, their stability is independent of their aspect and that the microclimate between 22° and 125° remains more humid as ambient conditions become drier. This could add to our understanding of alpine bird ecology and play a role in conservation
Morphological and physiological determinants of performance and associations to thermoregulatory preferences in an alpine skink, Eulamprus kosciuskoi
Get PDFPerformance is dependent on a combination of morphological and physiological features in the context of present environmental factors. Sprint speed is important in the fitness of many animals and is used to represent performance. This study explored the effects of temperature and features of body condition on performance of an Australian alpine skink, Eulamprus kosciuskoi, along with reproductive costs, using sprint speed to represent performance. Further, the effect of size on preferred body temperature was analysed to investigate the determinants of behavioural thermoregulatory responses that are associated with performance. A sample of 21 lizards consisting of juveniles, males and gravid and non-gravid females were caught in December in the Kosciuszko National Park, Australia. Lizards were raced at cold and hot temperature treatments, temperature preference tests were conducted and morphological features measured. Performance was significantly greater at higher temperature and correlated positively with body mass but not with relative tail length. Gravidity incurred no significant performance cost, and no significant correlation was found between preferred body temperature and size. Understanding the determinants of performance, along with temperature regulation effects, has conservation implications in the context of rising temperatures associated with climate change
The hard cases for actualism: Efficacious vs inefficacious oughts
Get PDFJoe is a firefighter who is sent to rescue a child from a burning building. He is the only person on the scene, and he has a professional duty to do it. Unfortunately, he was too busy gambling to learn anything useful when he was at the firefighter school. As such, suppose that if he enters the burning building, it is sufficiently unlikely that he can successfully rescue the child. It is more probable he will die alongside the child. Ought Joe to save the child? In this paper, I argue that there are two distinct types of ‘oughts’. In one sense, Joe ought to save the child and this is what I call the ‘inefficacious’ sense of oughts. In another sense, it is not the case that he ought to save the child, and this is the ‘efficacious’ sense of oughts. I show how this distinction helps actualism – the philosophical position that what matters for the assessment of options is what will actually happen – deal with a cluster of ‘hard cases’
Bird species richness and abundance: The effects of structural attributes, habitat complexity and tree diameter
Get PDFStructurally complex habitats influence species richness and abundance through the provision of resources and microhabitats. This study examines the effects of structural attributes, habitat complexity (expressed as habitat complexity score) and tree diameter (expressed as standard deviation of diameter at breast height), on bird species richness and abundance. Projected foliage cover and diameter at breast height of the five closest trees and bird richness and abundance were recorded at the 30 survey sites within the Kioloa Coastal Campus. Regression analyses were conducted between the structural attributes and bird richness and abundance. A statistically significant correlation (α=0.05) was found between habitat complexity score and bird richness and abundance. A similar relationship was observed with the standard deviation of diameter at breast height. Land managers can employ these findings to enhance habitat restoration and rehabilitation projects, and to monitor biodiversity outcomes