THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

Abstract In this article I reveal how texts produced by Aboriginal women scholars signify a racialised and gendered body that functions discursively, as an immediacy of racism in the form of white patriarchal epistemic violence (Lloyd 1991, 74). I demonstrate how this dominant racialised and gendered form of violence is an assertion of power that involves or arises from racialised knowledge by examining Dirk Moses' analysis of ‘Indigeneity’ via the Northern Territory Intervention (Spivak 1988).     

The Role of Parliamentary Intention in Adjudication under the Human Rights Act 1998

This essay gives more detailed content to the widespread viewthat the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) has changed the traditionalrole of parliamentary intention in statutory interpretation.It begins by outlining the various ways in which legislativeintent has featured in traditional (pre-HRA) statutory interpretation.This is followed by an examination of the interpretive principlesdeveloped by the senior judiciary under the HRA case-law, focusingon the extent to which they seem to depart from traditionalprinciples. It is argued that although the traditional roleof parliamentary intention is partly preserved post-HRA, theinterpretive obligation under s 3(1) HRA nonetheless shiftsthe interpretive focus away from what Parliament originallyintended in enacting the legislation under HRA scrutiny, towardsfulfilling the overriding goal of achieving compatibility withConvention rights. The final sections of the essay attempt toprovide an account of what is involved in this shift.     

Class wars? Religion and (In)equality in the Workplace

In this paper, I seek to demonstrate the potential for conflictinherent in the prohibition of discrimination on grounds ofreligion or belief with the regulation of discrimination onother grounds. I suggest that such conflict is inevitable andthat it is a mistake to protect religion and/or belief in likemanner to grounds such as sex, race, sexual orientation anddisability. While such protection is, at present, required byEC law, I suggest that legislation along present lines is notrequired by the European Convention on Human Rights and thatit is not justified by any special quality of religion. On thecontrary, I argue that requiring the accommodation of practicesor beliefs categorised as ‘religious’ tends to perpetuatepractices and beliefs which are problematic on equality andother grounds.     

Towards an Australian Indigenous Women's Standpoint Theory

In this article I outline an Australian Indigenous women's standpoint theory. I argue that an Indigenous women's standpoint generates problematics informed by our knowledges and experiences. Acknowledging that Indigenous women's individual experiences will differ due to intersecting oppressions produced under social, political, historical and material conditions that we share consciously or unconsciously. These conditions and the sets of complex relations that discursively constitute us in the everyday are also complicated by our respective cultural differences and the simultaneity of our compliance and resistance as Indigenous sovereign female subjects.     

Reforming the United Kingdom Constitution: Law,Convention, Soft Law

The Governance of Britain Green Paper continues the programme of constitutional reform begun in 1997, and appears to reinforce the juridification of the UK's constitution. Nevertheless, several key reforms will be implemented not by legislation, but by creating new conventions. This article argues that such ‘declared’ conventions are best understood as a form of constitutional ‘soft law’, which attempt to influence constitutional behaviour rather than generating binding norms. Applying a regulatory analysis, it then argues that the case for a soft, rather than hard law approach to constitutional reform is weaker than its widespread use in the UK suggests. Finally, the article challenges the thesis that the political constitution is being replaced by a legal constitution, arguing that the government's attitude to constitutional reform still exhibits basic characteristics of political constitutionalism. Moreover, there is more to contemporary constitutional developments than a bipolar contest between political and legal constitutionalism.