Category Archives: Business and Law

Australia and East Timor agree on the Timor Sea

Australia’s agreement with East Timor to settle a permanent maritime boundary in the Timor Sea appears to bring to an end a long-running and often bitter dispute which has marred relations between the two countries. It also marks another chapter in Australia bullying its tiny near neighbor into acquiescing to a deal that is less […]

Is Arbitral Justice Blind? The Conflict of Laws and International Commercial Arbitration

It’s a fundamental principle of developed legal systems that justice is blind. This is often represented by the blindfolded Lady Justice. Objectivity is key to the determination of legal disputes, and parties’ rights and obligations. International commercial arbitration plays an important role in the resolution of cross-border commercial disputes. Rather than submitting their disputes to […]

Deakin (Students) Teaching – Peer Learning and the Vis Moot

At the time of my last Deakin Speaking post, the oral rounds for the Willem C. Vis (East) International Commercial Arbitration Moot were underway.  Today, the oral rounds for the Vis Moot in Vienna are coming to their close.  Another season’s ‘mooties’ will join the ranks of Vis Moot alumni for Deakin University, and for the […]

Deakin (Students) Deciding – Written and Oral Argument at the Vis Moot

The oral rounds for the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot are here again.  This week, students from 115 teams from around the world are putting oral argument relating to difficult international commercial law issues in front of arbitrators comprising practitioners, academics, and other professionals at the Vis (East) Moot in Hong Kong.  There […]

Submissions to family violence royal commission reveal a fragmented system

On Monday, the public hearings for Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence began. The public hearings follow the completion of community consultations and the close of written submissions in late May. Nearly 1000 Victorians – advocates, experts and policy stakeholders – provided submissions to the commission. They called for change in the justice, health, social […]

No so cashed up

In early May, 2015, news services reported that Denmark, one of those wacky Scandinavian countries that just seems to be obsessed with being progressive, would allow retailers to only offer card payment, and allow them to ban cash as a means of transaction. For quite a while, Scandinavia has been all about a cashless society. In […]

Australia’s Hate-Love Relationship with Alcohol

In the 2015 Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) Annual Alcohol Poll, 34 per cent of Australians said that they drink to get drunk, 43 per cent said they had vomited as a result of drinking, and 75 per cent said Australia has a problem with excess drinking or alcohol abuse. But in the same […]