Emboldened by the Spitzenkandidaten process, the new European Commission emerges as the most political yet. The Commission asks EU citizens to judge its operation by its ability ‘to deliver solutions to the big issues that cannot be addressed by the Member States alone’. The Better...

This article questions the nature and character of the amendments the Lisbon Treaty makes to the EU's legislative procedures. Do these changes make for real legislature? If we want to know that, the first question to be addressed is: what actually make for a real legislature? What are the...

Legislative drafting mistakes can upset statutory schemes. The Affordable Care Act was nearly undone by such mistakes. The recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is rife with them. Traditional legal scholarship has examined whether courts should help resolve Congress's mistakes. But courts have remained...

My argument will be that it is unjust in the broadest view of our legal system for judges to legislate, even if they confine their legislation to the narrowest limits in the closest of cases. To the extent that my argument is successful in diminishing the judicial legislation position, it would...

We may sharpen our understanding of legislation by juxtaposing it with other types of legal act. John Gardner attempts to differentiate legislation from legal rulings - an unusual juxtaposition in itself - and his claims about the difference are surprising. Legal rulings are legally binding...

This article assesses what contribution supplementary measures might make in the face of a legislated emissions trading scheme. The proposed Australian Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is discussed briefly to outline the essential features of this Scheme. Then measures such as renewable energy...

The paper is based on my contributions to the East Asia Forum blog (and my partially overlapping "Japanese Law and the Asia Pacific" blog) drawing mainly on developments from the end of 2008 through to mid-2009. Many topics are important not only within Australia and Japan, but also potentially...

In 2009, the 1959 Antarctic Treaty celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. Over its fifty-year existence the Treaty and the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) built upon it, have promoted freedom of scientific research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Despite the many successes of the Antarctic...

This Article examines local efforts to regulate mobile capital. Despite the conventional wisdom that sub-national governments cannot effectively control or redistribute capital, cities have increasingly sought to do just that. This Article describes these efforts, which include putting...

This article gives an overview of the development of the disaster relief law within the international society. Attached to the article is a copy of a report from the United Nation of the Secretary-General of 1984 with draft to a Convention on expediting the delivery of emergency assistance,...