This subject provides an opportunity to learn about how different societies grapple with common challenges in health care systems and to consider whether and how these comparisons can be helpful in guiding change within a particular system. While human biology is similar worldwide, the economic, social, and ethical aspects of health care are reflected through the prism of each society’s culture, history and political framework. The legal responses to these economic, social and ethical debates therefore can vary from one society to another. This subject will explore comparative approaches to topics ranging from the structure and financing of the health care system to legal aspects of reproduction and death. The subject, while referencing Australian approaches, will use Canada and the United States as the base for comparison and will explore the approaches adopted in other countries as well.

Professor Bobinski recently completed serving as the Dean of the Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, Canada. She has taught Comparative Health Law in Canada and the United States. She recently served as the President of the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics and as a member of the Canadian Public Health Officer's Ethics Advisory Committee, and previously directed a top-ranked health law program in the United States.

Principal topics will include comparative approaches to health law and policy rules in areas such as:

• The right to health and health care financing
• Regulation and/or licensing of health care professionals
• Quality of care
• Contraception, abortion and sterilisation
• Fetal conflicts
• Assisted reproduction, including the implications of advances in genetics
• Consent to or refusal of care, including cases involving death and dying
• Public health law including traditional aspects (eg contagious diseases) and new areas such as public health approaches to obesity.

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Health inequalities represent the most enduring and consequential global health challenge of our time. A child born in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, will live on average nearly 30 years less than a child born in Australia. This subject provides students with a firm understanding of the role of international law in promoting, or harming, human health. It covers ‘hard’ law such as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, as well as ‘soft law’ such as the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health. The lecturer brings into the discussion multiple international fields that powerfully affect health, such as trade, agriculture and climate change, and covers pressing topics including emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (like Zika, Ebola and influenza) and the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases. The central theme running throughout the discussions will be global health justice. The subject uses innovative teaching tools to highly engage students, including case studies and real-life simulations.

Professor Lawrence Gostin is an internationally renowned scholar in international public health law at Georgetown University and has recently published a definitive and ground-breaking book on this subject (Global Health Law, Harvard University Press, 2014).

This subject will provide students with an in-depth understanding of global health law and examine the major contemporary problems in global health, the principal international legal instruments governing global health and the principal international organisations and innovative solutions for global health governance in the 21st century. It will cover naturally occurring infectious diseases, past and future epidemics, bioterrorism events (eg anthrax or smallpox) and/or major chronic diseases caused by modern lifestyles (eg obesity or tobacco use).

Principal topics include:

• Health in a globalised world
• The ‘grand challenges’ in global health
• National security and global health: national interests, enlightened self-interest and health diplomacy
• International health law: the WHO International Health Regulations and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
• Health and human rights
• World trade and world health
• Innovations in global health governance: towards a framework convention on global health.

Health, trade and investment laws and norms interact in multiple ways, both to the benefit of health and to its detriment. This subject explores both the harmonies and the tensions across these critical areas of policy and governance at legal, normative, operational and institutional levels. It draws out some of the major themes by examining a number of high-profile areas of controversy in detail, in particular the World Trade Organization and investment treaty challenges to Australia’s tobacco plain packaging laws; the tensions between intellectual property protection and access to affordable medicines, medical technologies and devices; and contests over the negotiation of new trade and investment agreements, particularly their implications for governments’ regulatory space to protect and promote health. It is conducted by two leading global health law practitioners who bring both academic expertise and practical experience.

Principal topics include:

• Global health law and governance
• International trade and investment law and governance
• International trade and investment challenges to tobacco control
• Trade and investment law issues in access to affordable medicines, medical technologies and devices
• Trade and investment law issues in the regulation of alcohol and unhealthy food
• The protection of health in the negotiation and implementation of trade and investment agreements, including the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement
• The role of evidence in health-trade-investment policy development and litigation
• The opportunities and challenges for achieving multi-sectoral health-trade-investment collaboration and understanding

Data relating to an individual’s physical and mental health and condition can reveal extremely sensitive information. Valuable health data also underpins improvements in health care and can be useful for other government and commercial purposes. How can the law protect the principle of medical confidentiality and enable the data flows necessary for a modern learning healthcare system, public health, and other public interest purposes?

Health privacy and data protection expert Mark Taylor considers the relevant law and governance in Australia and comparable jurisdictions. This subject will provide students with an advanced and specialised knowledge of health data governance, including relevant privacy and data protection law. It will invite critical consideration of relevant law benchmarked against the Recommendation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Council on Health Data Governance and other international standards.

Principal topics include:

• Legal concepts of ‘personal health data’, ‘identifiability’, ‘reasonable expectation’ and ‘public interest’
• Transparency, informed consent, and respect for individual objection
• Confidentiality and third-party access, including family members, researcher, public health and government
• Feedback of incidental findings and the ‘right not to know’
• Oversight and approval mechanisms, with consideration of issues raised by increasing use of new techniques of machine learning and analysis of big data (including algorithmic accountability in health care context)
• International transfer and cross-border cooperation.

This subject will address a range of human rights in the health law area, including bioethical origins of contemporary views of health rights; Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the role of the Special Rapporteur; rights to engage in health tourism; rights to life and death; rights to health information; rights to civil remedy and compensation for malpractice; rights to coronial investigation of deaths; rights to complain about registered practitioners; and public health law rights.

Principal topics include:

• Bioethical and human rights to health
• Rights to health
• Rights to obtain health services overseas
• Rights to health information
• Rights to compensation for malpractice
• Rights to death
• Rights to death investigation
• Rights to complaint and notification.

This subject will examine patients’ expectations and legal rights when receiving health care, their avenues for complaint and compensation, and accountability mechanisms (including professional discipline) for protecting the public in the event of health, performance or conduct problems involving a health practitioner. The focus will be on patients and health practitioners in Australia and New Zealand.

Principal topics include:

• Patient safety
• Patients’ needs and rights following an adverse event
• Open disclosure
• Defensive medicine
• Health practitioner regulation (including the Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Scheme)
• Health complaint systems in Australia and New Zealand.

Following a five year inquiry and the 2017 release of the report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse after, the issue of child sexual abuse in institutional settings gained extensive attention from the public, political representatives and legal commentators. The inquiry contributed to new understandings of the incidence and extent of physical, sexual, psychological and emotional abuse in a range of institutional settings, including schools, hospitals, churches, sporting organisations, foster homes and other accommodation services. The debate on how the law may best respond to the abuse continues, with judicial attention to the current law, and political attention to law reform. There are many challenging issues associated with the legal redress of child abuse, including time limits for claims, liability for the criminal acts of others, the onus of proof, and the appropriate compensation regime.

This subject examines the background to and current understandings of child abuse in institutional settings, the relevant tort law in Australia (with international comparisons) and the challenges of its application to these situations, recent and proposed tort law reforms, and the new Australian ‘Redress Scheme’.

Bill Madden is a lawyer specialising in injury compensation including intentional torts and the overlays provided by statutory reform and statutory schemes. He is a regular writer and presenter on tort law topics.

Principal topics include:

• The challenges of historical abuse
• Findings from the Royal Commission and other inquiries
• Liability of the perpetrator – the legal framework
• Liability of the institution – the onus of proof, criminal acts, vicarious liability and non-delegable duty
• The significance of mandatory reporting of abuse
• Tort law reforms – limitations, the onus of proof and legal structures
• Redress schemes, framework, boundaries and fairness
• Future reforms.

This subject will examine ways in which law is affecting, and being affected by, the latest advances in medical technology.  It will cover a variety of fascinating technologies including genetic, big data analytics, regenerative, therapeutic, artificial intelligence  and reproductive technologies. It challenges students to think not only about the future of medicine, but the future of human life itself. Are legal systems dealing with these issues in adequate, legitimate, and strategic ways?

Significantly, the course is not simply for medical lawyers. The syllabus weaves specific technological case-studies with important cross-cutting themes drawn from regulation theory, law reform, and applied philosophy. Those  themes are organised so as to provide a framework for critical thinking about regulatory reform and the role of law, lawyers and the medical profession in this process. The themes also impart knowledge and skills relevant to a wide range of industries where law must deal with substantial scientific uncertainty and ethical controversy. Students with interests in privacy, human rights, tort law, IT governance, artificial intelligence, science and technology, family law, and risk regulation are all catered for.

The subject will not be limited to any particular jurisdiction, but focusses on Australian and European law and draws widely on world events. It will be taught by Dr Kathleen Liddell, Director of the Centre for Law, Medicine and Life Sciences (Cambridge) who has more than 20 years’ experience in academia, legal practice, law reform, policy advice and ethical analysis.

Principal topics include:

• Human enhancement, cryogenics and other controversial scientific techniques
• Reproductive technologies ‘old and ‘new’ including IVF, embryo selection, artificial gametes, womb transplants and ectogenesis
• ‘Big data’, data analytics, AI and machine-based learning in healthcare
• Genetic technology, gene editing and personalised medicine
• Future therapeutics
• Regenerative medicine including organ transplants and human stem cell treatments
• Other topical issues that arise while the subject is being taught.

Cross-cutting themes include:

• Challenges of uncertainty, ambiguity, transformative potential and technological ‘drivers’
• ‘Ladders’ of regulatory intervention
• Phases in the maturation of health technology regulation
• Bioethical debates surrounding utility, autonomy, best interests and the public interest
• Limits of informed consent and paternalism as regulatory devices
• Regulatory ‘tourism’
• The purpose and impact of public engagement
• Other recurrent ethical and social issues such as technological exceptionalism and moral relativism
• Different policymaking cultures
• Incentives for innovation with a particular focus on cutting-edge issues in patent law

Medical practitioners, policy-makers, the courts, patients and families are dealing with ongoing debates in medical ethics ranging from euthanasia, abortion, resource allocation and managing the risks of research, to issues thrown up at the cutting-edge of science where we can now edit the germline, or create new life via so-called 'synthetic biology'. While we have existing legal frameworks in place for some of these issues, enormous moral disagreements remain. How should we think about these issues?

This subject aims to provide a basic toolkit and skills to engage in deeper ethical reflection about the major debates in medical ethics and about advances in the biological and neurosciences. Professor Julian Savulescu is Director of the Centre for Practical Ethics, the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and the Institute for Science and Ethics, University of Oxford. He is Editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics and is a recognised world leader in medical ethics. The goal of this subject is not to provide answers to these medical dilemmas, but to enable students to think more deeply for themselves about what their position is and to be able to justify that position to others. A variety of perspectives will be covered through the use of guest lecturers.

Principal topics include:

• The current revolution in bioethical reasoning and methods in bioethics
• Making good medical/moral judgments for self and others
• Basic ethical theories and concepts
• Abortion
• Euthanasia
• Regulation of research, including:
  • Gene editing
  • Stem cell research and cloning
  • Transgenesis and human-non-human chimeras
  • Synthetic biology
  • Sale of biological material and body parts
  • Regulation of doping in sport
  • Reproductive cloning
  • Human enhancement
  • Genetic selection
  • Coercion in reproduction
  • Neuroethics.

2017 marked the 25th anniversary of the landmark Australian medical law decision Rogers v Whitaker. Medical litigation remains an exceptionally vibrant and challenging field, underpinned by the rapid pace of scientific and social developments that generate new issues for the law. Many of the more challenging issues are at the core of policy – birth, reproduction and death. The legal issues are fundamental, covering the existence of duties, what should be considered negligent, the challenges of legal causation and the appropriate compensation regime – all against a background of insurance affordability, the ongoing health and safety improvement mechanisms, the reporting and disclosure agenda and the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme. This subject examines the framework of medical litigation, current challenges and issues on the horizon.

The subject presenter Bill Madden is a lawyer specialising in medical litigation, the co-author of two health law texts and a regular writer and presenter on medical law topics.

Principal topics include:

• History and incidence of medical litigation
• The impact of recent legal and court-based reforms including mediation
• The medical indemnity marketplace and government intervention
• Duty, breach of duty and statutory defences/special protections
• Consent, informed consent and treatment errors—the legal differences
• Causation and loss of chance
• The importance and changing framework of expert evidence
• Privacy and confidentiality issues
• National regulation, conduct and crime
• Mandatory reporting impacts
• Coroners’ investigations and hearings.

This subject will analyse the relationship between psychiatry, psychology and law in contemporary Australia. It will address criteria and policy relating to involuntary status and the use of coercion in relation to those with mental illnesses and intellectual disabilities, focusing on the Mental Health Act 2014 (Vic) and the Disability Act 2006 (Vic); the role of the 2013 DSM-5; fitness to stand trial; mental impairment; sentencing of offenders with disabilities; expert evidence by mental health practitioners; mental harm litigation; the role of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in civil litigation; prediction of risk in criminal law; syndrome evidence in litigation; profiling evidence; and therapeutic jurisprudence.

Principal topics include:

• Involuntary status in contemporary Australia
• The role of the Chief Psychiatrist, the Mental Health Commissioner and the Mental Health Tribunal
• The role of DSM-5 and ICD-10
• Therapeutic jurisprudence
• Mental impairment
• Expert evidence by psychiatrists and psychologists
• Sentencing of offenders with mental illnesses, brain injuries and intellectual disabilities
• Fitness to stand trial under international criminal law
• Civil litigation and complaints against mental health practitioners
• Mental harm litigation
• PTSD in the law
• Prediction of risk evidence
• Syndrome evidence.

Drawing on key examples from Australia, the Western Pacific and South east Asia regions, with some reference to other regions of the world, this subject examines how the law may be used as a tool to improve public health and prevent illness and disease. It also considers how laws may negatively impact the public’s health if not carefully crafted. In Public Health Law, students will develop specialised knowledge of the legal basis for public health regulation and of particular domestic laws that are relevant to a variety of critical contemporary public health issues. They will also examine the role of domestic law in relation to global public health issues and international law. The subject will complement the Melbourne Law Masters subject Global Health Law, but it is also intended to be studied independently and no prior knowledge will be assumed. Specific areas of public health concern that will be considered include communicable diseases; family health, gender and the life course; health system strengthening and universal health care; health security and emergency responses; and non-communicable diseases. The subject will also examine the law’s reach and limits noting other tools that play a vital role in achieving public health.

Principal topics include:

• What is public health law?
• The law in context:
  • Communicable diseases
    • HIV/STIs/Hepatitis
    • Immunisation and vaccines
  • Health security and emergency response
  • Surveillance and outbreaks (alert and response, International Health Regulations (IHRs))
  • Biosecurity
  • Emergency and humanitarian responses
  • Gender, equity and human rights
  • Maternal and reproductive health
  • Healthy ageing
  • Access to health services
  • Access to medicines/therapeutic goods
  • ‘Life-style’ diseases and the law
  • Substance abuse
  • Disability and injury prevention
  • Family health, gender and the life course
  • Health system strengthening and universal health coverage
  • Non-communicable diseases.

Over the past few years there have been profound changes in the regulation and registration of the health professions. Fifteen professions are now included in a national scheme and others may join them. All of the registered professions are covered by the same legislation for accreditation, registration and the monitoring of practice, to ensure that standards are maintained to protect the public. More than 700,000 health practitioners are registered under the national scheme and, when it was adopted in July 2010, 66 acts of parliament were repealed and about 85 health professional boards were abolished. This subject will provide a detailed examination of the scheme, which has centralised the disciplinary process, with the state and territory registration bodies acting under delegated authority from the federal board. The subject will also provide an understanding of how health practitioners, their employers and educators can report ‘notifiable conduct’ of practitioners to the national regulator, and how healthcare consumers (patients) can lodge a ‘notification’ about the practice of a health practitioner. The course will scrutinise the concept of revalidation, and the health, fitness/character, performance and conduct pathways, analysing the factors that lead to different forms of disciplinary findings and determinations for different forms of problematic conduct, including sexual misconduct and serious error. It will examine what differentiates permissible from impermissible advertising, will evaluate how unregistered practitioners are now regulated and will explore how registered, unregistered and deregistered practitioners’ conduct is regulated by consumer protection legislation.

Principal topics include:

• Legal requirements for accreditation, registration and monitoring of practice of health practitioners in Australia
• The process and grounds for disciplinary action
• An examination of specific disciplinary proceedings against health practitioners, looking at issues of conduct, health, performance and fitness
• A comparison of disciplinary proceedings and other legal action against health practitioners
• Analysis of the regulatory mechanisms applicable to unregistered practitioners
• An evaluation of the new registration scheme and its operation to date
• A review of consumer protection actions that can be taken against health practitioners, both those who are registered and those who are not.

Class actions have become an increasingly prominent feature of Australia’s litigation landscape. Some people think they enhance access to justice, offer an efficient way to deal with large numbers of claims and function as an effective regulatory tool, while others criticise them as improper ‘private’ regulation or as just another way for lawyers to become wealthy. Students will have the opportunity to critically evaluate these views. Law reform proposals will be considered, as will the development, present state and likely future directions of the law and practice of Australian class actions. While the focus will be on Australia, methods used in other countries to bring and manage group proceedings will be considered and compared. Students will have the opportunity to engage and debate with lecturers and guest lecturers with substantial academic, practice, judicial and international experience.

Principal topics include:

• The origins of modern class action regimes in Australia
• Comparisons of the federal and Victorian regimes with those in other Australian and overseas jurisdictions
• The main stages of class action litigation
• The roles of lawyers, judges, parties, litigation funders and regulators
• Specific issues, including choosing a forum, defining the class, the role of the lead plaintiff, entrepreneurial lawyering, identifying and notifying class members, settlement and court approval
• Comparing class actions with other procedures available for bringing and managing complex litigation
• Securities class actions and the regulatory role of the class action
• Funding and costs issues, including the role of commercial litigation funders.

Governments strive to constrain runaway health care costs through competitive markets. This can be lucrative for private players and competition authorities are increasingly called upon to investigate commercial practices in the health care industry. The competition analysis must still take account of significant government and philanthropic service providers. Further, health care markets are susceptible to market failure due to information asymmetries, adverse selection, moral hazard and principal-agent problems. This subject explores the application of competition law to a broad range of such health care markets in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, with insights that will be generalisable to many other jurisdictions.

The teachers in the subject are from leading international law firm Jones Day and have many years of experience specialising in the application of competition law to the health care sector, advising clients and government agencies, and training government officials.

Principal topics include:

• Introduction to competition law and economic concepts in the context of the healthcare industry
• Health professionals and competition law
• Private health care facilities and competition law
• Public health care facilities and competition law
• Health insurance and competition law
• Competition issues arising from intellectual property protections and therapeutic good approval requirements
• Industry self-regulation and participation in government processes.

Civil litigation is experiencing unprecedented levels of reform. Legislative changes, court decisions, changes to court rules and economic pressures are changing the way litigation is practised across the common law world. The proper roles of parties, lawyers, judges and courts are under scrutiny and discussion. The focus of this subject is current and significant issues in civil litigation, with an emphasis on new and emerging developments.

Andrew Higgins is an Associate Professor in Civil Procedure at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, and a Fellow in Law at Mansfield College. He is also a practising barrister specialising in mass tort litigation and General Editor of Civil Justice Quarterly.

Bernie Quinn is a Queens Counsel at the Victorian Bar who practices in a wide range of areas including commercial law, public law and product liability law. He speaks Bahasa Indonesian and was an Associate to Justice Michael Kirby. The subject will include guest lecturers drawn from the judiciary and the profession.

Principal topics include:

• Significant procedural reforms in Australia and overseas
• Law reform proposals
• The role of the judge, including case management trends
• Principles of apprehended bias
• ‘Overarching’ obligations of participants in the civil justice system
• Summary and interim relief
• Discovery
• Client legal privilege
• Expert evidence
• Procedural issues in conflict of laws
• Procedural issues in collective redress
• Costs and funding rules
• Appeal processes
• Enforcement
• Alternative dispute resolution
• Online dispute resolution and its impact on civil procedure.

Negligence is one of the most heavily litigated causes of action in common law jurisdictions. It is of enormous practical importance in a very wide range of fact situations. It is also a dynamic area of law: the relevant principles are constantly being applied to new fact situations, and the courts are regularly forced to grapple with difficult questions about the scope of negligence liability. This subject examines key current issues and controversies in the law of negligence in the light of theoretical and comparative perspectives. The lecturers have both published widely on private law topics, including a range of issues in the law of negligence.

Principal topics include:

• An overview of the law of negligence, including theoretical and historical perspectives and the place of negligence in tort law and private law
• The duty of care requirement in general terms, including the distinction between duty in law and duty in fact, the approach to the duty question in novel situations and the role of public policy in duty decisions
• Liability for psychiatric injury
• Liability for pure economic loss
• Liability for omissions
• Liability of public authorities
• Current issues in the standard of care and its application, with particular reference to professional negligence cases
• The requirement of damage
• Factual causation, including recovery for loss of a chance
• Scope of liability (legal causation and remoteness)
• Defences (both common law and statutory).

This subject examines the human rights of people with disabilities. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is the newest United Nations (UN) human rights treaty. This subject analyses the interpretation and implementation of the CRPD. It also explores the effect of multiple forms of marginalisation; for example, individuals with disabilities that are members of other minority groups, such as women, transgender people or racial minorities. This subject is relevant for students who are interested in reform in this area or for those interested in exploring the newest iteration of UN human rights law.

The lecturer has both personal and professional experience in this field and has a network of collaborators, including UN bodies, government actors, community groups, academics and others. She draws on her experiences and connections to deliver substantive law as well as provide an insight into the lived experience of disability.

Principal topics include:

• Personhood and the right to equal recognition before the law
• Decision-making and the right to legal capacity
• Violence and the right to freedom from abuse
• Mental health and the rights to liberty and consent to treatment
• Universal design, reasonable accommodation, and accessibility
• Medical, social, and human rights models of disability.

Expert evidence continues to play a major role in civil litigation and criminal prosecution, as well as in administrative regulation. Moreover, the field of expertise in law has become the site of numerous contemporary controversies over judicial standards for admissibility of expertise, how to evaluate the reliability of expert testimony and the ethics of experts and attorneys who present expert testimony. This subject is primarily a detailed examination of the law and policy of the regulation of expert evidence in Australia, as well as comparative reform movements of likely significance to Australia in the future, notably developments in the United States. The materials for the subject, most of which are from court files of actual cases, will emphasise the practical uses of expert evidence inside and outside the courtroom.

Principal topics include:

• The legal framework for regulating expert evidence
• Debate and controversies about expertise
• The admissibility of expert testimony
• Restrictions on the conduct of experts
• Use of expert evidence inside and outside courtrooms.

The above topics will be illuminated through the study of specific instances of expert evidence, conduct and regulation that have prompted change and reform or controversy in Australia or other countries, especially the United States.

International Legal Internship allows students to gain credit for undertaking advanced legal research and analysis on an approved international internship of at least eight weeks of full-time work in an approved international institution or organisation. This subject is focused on providing students with an opportunity to engage with legal and policy issues in contemporary society through work experience and further develop oral and written communication skills. Students are required to secure and fund their internships personally.

Students are encouraged to discuss their internship proposals with the subject coordinators. Students who successfully enrol in International Legal Internship must arrange a meeting with at least one of the subject coordinators both prior to their internship and upon completion, to develop a better understanding of research and the role of international institutions in international law and relations.

Science and technology are at the heart of many of the most pressing legal and social problems of our day: disease prevention, bioethics, big data, state and corporate surveillance, the regulation of military technologies, and so on. This subject invites students to consider the common challenges of law, policy and public discourse posed by problems of this sort, at both the domestic and international level. In doing so, it asks: how do scientific discoveries and their technological applications shape our legal and social worlds? And how do law and society affect scientific and technological developments in turn?

The overall aim is to equip students coming from diverse backgrounds, training and experience with the analytical and critical tools necessary to understand and respond to complex questions of science and technology in all their legal, social, (geo)political, ethical, and cultural dimensions.

The lecturer undertakes research and advocacy in this area and was recently a visiting fellow at the Harvard Program on Science, Technology and Society.

Principal topics include:

• Science and technology studies as a field
• The relationship between ‘law’, ‘science’, ‘technology’ and ‘society’ as concepts and fields of practice
• Biotechnology and bioethics
• Drug patents and disease prevention
• Big data and global surveillance
• Military technologies
• Public discourse around science and technology
• The future: advocacy, law reform and other critical encounters between law, science, technology and society.

Privacy has been valued for centuries but now there is a resurgent interest in its protection as a result of new technologies, changing social norms  and a rise of markets focused on the commodity value of information. Overlapping with the resurgent interest in privacy is a related concern about the management of data flows, especially on the part of government agencies and business organisations. The legal frameworks that deal with privacy and data protection have a long history but are coming under pressure to adapt to a more complex modern environment.

Privacy and data protection experts Professor Megan Richardson and Karin Clark explore these issues. They pay particular attention to the scope and nature of privacy protection as well as appropriate limits and exceptions, the ongoing pressures for law reform, and the practical operation of privacy and data protection laws in Australia and comparable jurisdictions.

Principal topics include:

• What is privacy?
• Conceptual and legal definitional issues
• International and comparative privacy and data protection regimes
• Protection of privacy in general law in Australia and comparable jurisdictions
• The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth): regulation of personal information held by the private and public sectors
• State/territory (especially Victorian) legislative regimes for the regulation of personal information
• Current topics in privacy law such as privacy and the media, privacy and health information, online privacy (including anti-spam laws), telecommunications and surveillance privacy
• Current reform inquiries and proposals and likely reforms.

Regulation has become a permanent feature of the way in which contemporary democratic economies, including Australia, are governed. There are few spheres of economic activity that are not subject to some form of regulatory oversight and control. Daily news programs rarely pass without some mention of a significant regulatory decision, proposed regulatory reform or allegations of some regulatory failure or scandal. For lawyers, dealings with regulators and regulatory regimes have become part of the staple diet of their work. Yet the practice of regulation is far from straightforward. Regulatory policy and practice has evolved considerably from its traditional origins in the form of ‘command and control’, accompanied by the growth of specific terminology and concepts that are likely to be unfamiliar to those other than regulatory technocrats. This subject provides an opportunity for students to develop an understanding of, and critically to evaluate, the basic tools, techniques and decision-making methodologies that are employed in regulatory design and practice. It will be of interest to both private and public sector lawyers who practise in regulated sectors of the economy, enhancing their understanding of how regulators go about the business of regulatory decision-making.

Principal topics include:

• Introduction: What is ‘regulation’ and ‘governance’?; the regulatory agency: institutional features, strengths and shortcomings; the rise of the ‘regulatory state’; regulatory regimes and the role of non-state actors
• Tools, techniques and instruments of regulation: command—traditional legal prohibitions backed by sanctions; competition—market based approaches; communication—information disclosure and publicity-based approaches; consensus (including self-regulation); code architecture and the use of ‘nudge’ techniques
• ‘New governance’ approaches to regulation: choice of Instrument; ‘hybrid’ approaches to regulation; responsive regulation, ‘smart regulation’ and its variants (including meta-regulation); cost-benefit analysis and regulatory impact assessment and ‘better regulation’
• Enforcement and compliance: problems with rules; principles-based regulation; the role of the criminal and civil law; punitive civil sanctions (the Macrory Review); regulatory enforcement styles; national styles of regulation; private enforcement, third party monitoring and certification systems
• Appraising Regulation: regulatory accountability; regulatory legitimacy: between democracy and expertise.

With attention often focused on the legal side of commercial dealings and related disputes in sport, the law‘s role regarding the basic building block of sport – the human body – can be overlooked. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, this subject will explore the legal and ethical aspects of the medical treatment of elite athletes and the important field of anti-doping. Medico-legal approaches to past and present controversies, including participation of disabled and pregnant athletes, concussion, infectious diseases and single-sex sports will be investigated in case studies sure to interest and challenge.

This subject is for medical professionals working in sport and for sports administrators and legal counsel responsible for day-to-day operational issues, especially anti-doping. The lecturers are two internationally eminent sports medicine practitioners and a legal expert in the field.

This subject considers selected topics from the medico-legal aspects of sports and anti-doping. The primary focus will be upon analysing the legal relationship between the sports medicine professional and the athlete-patient, especially in the context of team sports, where responsibilities are divided between athlete and team. It will incorporate selective study of a number of legal disciplines, including negligence, confidentiality, anti-discrimination law and anti-doping law.

Principal topics include:

• Responsibility for injury in the practice of sports medicine
• Sports participation with injury or disability
• Working with other health professionals in the ‘sports medicine team‘
• Boxing
• Concussion
• Infectious diseases in sport
• Performance-enhancing drugs with an emphasis on the medico/legal interface
• Illicit drugs
• The pregnant athlete
• Sex status of sports participants.

In 2010 all Australian governments publicly committed to implementing nationally uniform laws about workplace health and safety. This development is bringing to fruition a process that began 30 years ago. However, Victoria is one of two states that have not implemented the agreed national laws. Therefore this subject examines in detail the content of Victorian law, as well as the new national laws.

By referring to the existing state, territory and commonwealth body of law, this subject considers the operation of Victorian workplace health and safety law in its historical and industrial setting as well as the likely practical operation of the new regulatory regime. The lecturer is a barrister with extensive practical experience in running cases under workplace health and safety laws.

Principal topics include:

• The problem of work-related injury and disease
• The history of the legal regulation of health and safety at work
• Nationally uniform workplace health and safety laws
• Standard-setting under the Australian workplace health and safety statutes
• State enforcement of the workplace health and safety legislation
• Workers’ rights under the Australian workplace health and safety statutes
• The anti-bullying jurisdiction of the Fair Work Commission
• Workers’ compensation schemes in Australia
• The rehabilitation of injured workers
• The role and impact of the common law duty to provide a safe workplace.