Australia has recently acceded to the Vienna Convention on Treaties, one of the major codifying treaties concluded under United Nations auspices. Mr Brazil who was a member and later Leader of the Australian Delegation to the Conference that drew up the Convention, examines its scope, including its answer to the question—should the Convention cover the topic of treaty-making capacity of parts of federal States? Mr Brazil suggests that the Convention's rules on reference to preparatory materials as interpretative aids should be adopted by Australian courts. Its restatement of the topic of reservations and its reception of the notion of international public order (jus cogens) are evaluated. The themes of good faith and due process are seen to run through the Convention, which though not yet in force, has already gained wide acceptance.

Sir Victor examines the basic problems being encountered in the development of the international law of the seabed. An historical analysis reveals that the definitions used to effect the current allocation of rights in the seabed are not based on irresistible logical extensions of the concept of territorial sovereignty. On the contrary, legal definitions such as the definition of “continental shelf” represent and facilitate the political reality of competitive nationalism. Sir Victor then considers the constitutional relationship of the States and the Commonwealth in regard to the seabed. He argues that, historically, the States have no claim to sovereignty over their adjacent territorial seas as the colonies never exercised dominium there. The territorial seas remained in British Imperial jurisdiction until federation, when the Commonwealth acquired sovereignty over them as an attribute of nationhood.

Governments have been increasingly preoccupied with the task of reconciling claims to preferential treatment with the principle of equality. The social and philosophical issues raised by this apparent paradox are considered, and the compatibility of benign discrimination with the concept of equality demonstrated by developing a complex normative notion of equality. An analysis is then undertaken of the various attempts made by lawyers, in nearly one hundred existing bills of rights, to give formal expression to these principles. Ultimately the problem of benign discrimination falls for resolution by the courts, and the jurisprudence developed in this respect by the Supreme Courts of Canada and the United States is critically discussed and compared. Having exhaustively developed an appreciation of world experience regarding the interaction of bills of rights equality clauses and benign discrimination, consideration is given to the formulation of the Australian Human Rights Bill—a bill of which Gareth Evans was one of the principal draftsmen.

Section 8(4)(f) of the Estate Duty Assessment Act 1914–1974 (Cth) subjects to the charge for federal estate duty certain categories of proceeds of life assurance policies. It has proved to be the most litigated provision in the Act. In this article Professor Lindgren examines the anomalies and uncertainty which characterize the section. He suggests that the comparable provisions in the death duty legislation of the States are to be preferred and concludes that the federal provision should be amended along certain lines.

Through an examination of the relevant authorities, including American and Australian cases, Mr Lindell comments on the justiciability of, and nature of the duty imposed on the legislature by, sections 24 and 29 of the Commonwealth Constitution. The main conclusion is that if the House of Representatives did not conform with the constitutional requirements concerning the number of members to be chosen from each State and electoral redistribution, the House may no longer legally exist. The High Court would naturally be reluctant to reach such a conclusion without first providing the opportunity for defects to be rectified and Mr Lindell suggests that measures could be adopted by the Court which would enforce compliance with the relevant provisions without invalidating previous actions of the Parliament. Mr Lindell also deals with the related issues of locus standi and jurisdiction, concluding than an action could lie in the High Court to enforce compliance with the relevant constitutional and other provisions concerning the composition of the House of Representatives.

While State legislatures have responded, to some extent, to pressure for greater legal protection of consumers, consumer protection had never been an area of legislative activity on a national level until the passing of the Trade Practices Act 1974-1975 (Cth). Mr Goldring examines the effect of the Trade Practices Act 1974-1975 (Cth) on the area of consumer protection in Australia, and notes that the Act, in addition to introducing regulation of restrictive trade practices on a scale beyond that previously experienced in Australia, includes sweeping legislative innovations aimed to protect consumers. The Act is shown to prohibit certain types of undesirable commerical activity and gives to a wide range of potential plaintiffs the right to take action for damages and injunctive relief. The terms implied by law into contracts of sale of goods and hire-purchase are extended and similar terms are included in other types of contract.

In an examination of the existing limitations of freedom of assembly and demonstration in the A.C.T., Mr Brown first deals with the common law and various statutory provisions as they stood in 1971. He then examines the Public Order (Protection of Persons and Property) Act 1971 (Cth) in some depth. His conclusion, after a brief discussion of rights of peaceful assembly in the present law, is that the current legal position in the A.C.T. is unsatisfactory in that it does not give sufficient guarantees to civil rights but rather embodies repressive laws to prevent threats of public disorder that may be more imaginary than real.

In the past few years, the subject of administrative law remedies has been studied intensively in many common law jurisdictions. In this article, David Mullan examines the various reforms and proposals for reform and concludes that none is completely satisfactory and indeed that some compound previous problems and create new ones as well Nevertheless, he sees some merit in the New South Wales and Nova Scotia solutions which emerged as part of a general reform of the civil procedure rules and not as a separate statutory enactment.

Mr Priestley disagrees with the view expressed by Dr Hookey in his article “The Gove Land Rights Case”, that to a limited extent the common law recognized native communal title to land. Instead he suggests that the decision in Johnson v. M’Intosh which Dr Hookey regards as an exposition of this common law position, was an exposition of the law of Virginia as it had developed to the end of the 18th century. As such it may give guidance in the development of Australian law but similar conclusions should be drawn only in circumstances of sufficiently similar commencement and development. Mr Priestley concludes that in Milirrpum v. Nabalco Pty Ltd there was not evidence of such similarity before the court.

It is common for courts interpreting words in Commonwealth statutes to invoke State law to clarify the meaning of those words. For example, if a Commonwealth statute uses the word “shareholder” without adequate definition, reference will be made to State law as to the meaning of that word.

How is this approach to be justified? Part of the answer is that reference to State law was intended by the Commonwealth Parliament: but where is that intention to be found? Specifically, are sections 79 and 80 of the Judiciary Act 1903-1969 (Cth) relevant?

Amidst the turmoil of the recent Gair controversy in the Senate the Attorney-General tabled the first report of the Legal Aid Review Committee. Somewhat in keeping with the real political significance of the subject under review, the report was tabled very late one evening. Little or no publicity was given to its tabling, any notice taken being washed away by the turmoil of the times. Some might say that the modest size of the report deserved no greater recognition, but such a view is ungenerous and most certainly naive.

The document tabled is quite bulky, the greater part being taken up by the appendices. The almost clinical dissection of the existing legal aid facilities throughout Australia will give the role of this Committee real impetus. For too long lawyers and politicians in Australia have been smugly satisfied with the existing legal aid services. A close examination of the Report's appendices will reveal that local legal aid is very much like a badly moth-eaten patch work quilt.