The second National Conference on Regional Law and Justice, to be hosted by UNE School of Law, will bring experts from across Australia and around the world to Coffs Harbour  on May 18-20. Topics for discussion include the impact of the mining boom on regional Australia, Indigenous justice, and support for lawyers and legal services in rural and remote communities.
Keynote speakers at the 2nd National Rural and Regional Law and Justice Conference will include the Indigenous educator and researcher Jack Beetson giving “An Aboriginal perspective on rural law and justice”, and the award-winning author and journalist Paul Cleary asking “Is the mining boom a case of too much luck?”
The dinner speaker at the conference will be the leading commentator on rural democracy and justice in the United States, Jim Hightower. The author of five popular books, and twice Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Jim Hightower will be talking about challenges facing rural communities in the United States and Australia – including “fracking” associated with the coal seam gas industry.
The conference will be held at the BreakFree Aanuka Beach Resort beginning on Friday evening the 18th of May.
Paul Cleary’s keynote address will examine the current mining boom in Australia with particular reference to its implications for rural and regional communities. He will draw on his book Too Much Luck: the Mining Boom and Australia’s Future, published in 2011, and his forthcoming Mine-Field: the Dark Side of Australia’s Resources Frenzy. Professor Kim Economides, Director of the Legal Issues Centre at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, will deliver a keynote address titled “Centre-periphery tensions in legal theory and practice: can law and lawyers resist urban imperialism?”
Over thirty papers will cover a wide range of other issues, including the management of natural resource conflicts in regional Australia, crime, justice and policing in rural communities, delivery of legal services to rural localities and preparing legal students for careers in rural and regional Australia.
Go to the conference website for more information, the conference program, and registration details, or e-mail the conference conveners, Associate Professor Russell Hogg and Dr Amanda Kennedy.

A growing body of research recognises the relationship between past Australian government policy and practice and the drastic over-representation of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system. Similarly, numerous studies informed by consultation with Aboriginal people identify the relationship between colonisation, dispossession and child removal policies and epidemic levels of violence, abuse and addiction. Given these reports all suggest a need for healing as a priority to address the grief and trauma that continues to lead Aboriginal people into the criminal justice system, recent evaluations of Indigenous sentencing courts were considered to explore whether they facilitate or support healing. Analysis of the evaluations of two Australian Indigenous sentencing courts suggests that while they have had no discernible impact on Aboriginal re-offending rates, they may in fact support community and individual healing in some regards. However it also suggests the programs’ potential will remain unrealised unless they look beyond the administration of justice and better acknowledge the relationship between Aboriginal social and emotional wellbeing and over-representation in the criminal justice system.

Patrick Shepherdson has an extensive background in the NSW criminal justice system, most recently as Assistant Director, Crime Prevention with the NSW Department of Attorney General and Justice. In addition to management of the NSW legislatively-based crime prevention planning and funding program, Patrick established and managed a number of Aboriginal crime prevention initiatives, including the $1 million statewide Aboriginal Community (‘night’) Patrols program. Since establishing a consultancy in late 2010, Patrick has developed a number of crime prevention strategies in urban, regional and remote communities. He has worked on a number of national projects with Urbis research including research on legal support afforded to Native Title groups, focus testing of a national violence-prevention media campaign targeting young Indigenous people and a study exploring the feasibility of establishing a national training institute for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation. The paper ‘Just Healing’ is informed by research undertaken towards completion of a Masters Degree in Criminology at the University of Sydney.

Seminar details:
Time 12 pm (noon), Friday, 11th May 2012
Place
J N Lewis Seminar Room
W38 EBL Building
Faculty of the Professions, UNE

Further details: Gudmundur Jonsson (Or phone x 2841)

The English2Go mini-conference will showcase the power of research-led teaching and teaching-inspired research in one day of keynote addresses by leading educators and in workshops on important local work by teachers in New England schools. 

English2Go is open to researchers and teachers with an interest in research-inspired teaching and
teaching-inspired research.

Keynote talks will be delivered by leading researchers in literacies education.

Workshops are led by teachers and researchers with special expertise in English and literacies education.

For further information, contact Professor Mary Macken-Horarik.
Download the brochure.

J Kim J Wright, one of the leaders of the Integrative Law Movement, the will deliver the next Kirby Seminar on 4 May. Her paper is entitled, “The Integrative Law Movement:  Peacemaking, Problem-Solving, Healing and Sustainable Lawyering”. What if lawyers were peacemakers, problem-solvers and healers of conflicts? What if the purpose of law is to design, manage and heal relationships? If the legal system reflected the shift in societal values, what would it look like? How can lawyers create satisfying careers that allow them to make a difference, earn a living and have a satisfying life?

These are some of the questions of the Integrative Law Movement, a shift in the legal paradigm.

The integrative law movement contains many models and practices. Some practices, such as peacemaking circles, are traditional, ancient models which originated among tribal societies. Others, like problem-solving courts, are more recent developments. At times, seemingly identical new models have arisen in different geographic areas. Different names developed, some of which are still used in making reference to the movement. Integrative law has been or is sometimes called: comprehensive law, renaissance law, transformational law, visionary law, conscious lawyering, holistic law or holistic justice, creative lawyering, and relationship based lawyering.

Some people may also have heard of movement by the names of the many models and practice perspectives which fall under the integrative law umbrella including: collaborative law, restorative justice, transformative mediation, creative problem-solving in law, lawyers as peacemakers, lawyers as healers (law as a healing profession), sharing law, social-entrepreneurship law, preventive law, community lawyering, problem-solving and collaborative courts, including drug courts, veteran’s courts, mental health courts.

By whatever name, the integrative law movement represents a shift away from the adversarial, analytical legal system to a system that takes the best values and lessons of the current system and adds human values and emotions, applied positive psychology, and a broader view of the stakeholders in the system. Integrative law recognizes that legal problems and controversies do not arise in a vacuum but are part of complex, inter-related systems.

When: 12 noon Friday 4 May 2012
Where: JN Lewis Seminar Room, EBL Building (W38)
Further details: Gudmundur Jonsson (x2841 or gjonsson@une.edu.au)

The profession of law is focused on a respect for facts even or especially when the facts are unwelcome to a client or to an advocate. The academic discipline of law also finds itself dealing with what it considers to be facts. Drawing on a range of somewhat disparate but overlapping examples and contexts, my presentation seeks to raise questions about our ambivalent approach to facts. A number of the examples relate directly or indirectly to international law, where the facts encountered include geopolitical and historical facts. Other areas discussed include aspects of legal philosophy.

When: 12 pm (noon), Friday, 27th April 2012

Where: J N Lewis Seminar Room, W38 EBL Building, Faculty of the Professions, UNE

Further details: Gudmundur Jonsson (Phone 02 6773 2841 or gjonsson@une.edu.au)

Each time you turn on the television after 10pm, eaves drop on a group of men at your local pub, or drive past a set of billboards, your likely to encounter some stereotypes about masculinity and men’s sexuality …

Link to The Conversation to read the article, published in April 2012, by Professor Victor Minichiello and Dr Mitra Rashidian.