Summer and Winter Research Scholarships

Project duration:

4 weeks
21June-16^th July.

Description:

Background context - Public and private enforcement:

This project feeds into a bigger Oxford University Press book project, currently under contract and due for completion in June 2022, which examines the different ways in which we currently enforce our laws.  Although the modern assumption is that all our public laws, including the criminal law, are always enforced by public prosecutors and public regulatory agencies, there is a range of persistent exceptions to this pattern, in which private individuals are actively enlisted in the law enforcement exercise in one way or another. This range of exceptions seems to be growing.

In the United States, private actors have come to be seen as playing a vital constitutional role in enforcing public laws in cases in which public agency enforcement is perceptibly failing, either because the agency in question is politically compromised, or because its budget is so limited as to disable it from being properly effective. Private enforcement is also becoming more popular in regulatory contexts in Europe, although it is as yet not as fully developed. In Australia, by contrast, prosecutorial powers have tended historically to be almost exclusively reserved to the State, or to public agencies. At the same time, it is nowadays regularly noted in this jurisdiction that public enforcement systems are failing to catch and deter wrongdoers and that they are leaving victims without proper public justice.

Should Australia follow the American pattern and find ways of more actively involve private individuals in the law enforcement process when public systems fail to deliver?

Project Description and Research Questions:

This project will analyse two different types of mechanism that exist in the USA for involving private parties more closely in public law enforcement, with a view to assessing their explanations, advantages and disadvantages and their suitability for broader use elsewhere.

1. Bounty-hunter provisions. These are provisions under the Federal False Claims Act, which allow private parties both to have full powers of prosecution in respect of public frauds and to claim a share of the litigation proceeds on success. The process is subject to some important checks and balances. It has netted the State billions of dollars since it was reinvigorated in the late 1980s.
2. Whistle-blower provisions. These are provisions that do not allow private parties actual powers of prosecution as such, but which provide them with rewards for supplying vital, useful information about crimes to prosecutors or agencies.  

The task of the applicant will be to find, collect, organise and assist in the analysis of primary and secondary materials on both types of provisions, with a view to determining the following research questions:

1. Why do they exist?
2. How do they work in practice?
3. What are their main advantages and disadvantages?
4. Are they potentially suitability for replication in Australia?

Project Phases:

Stage 1 - Data Collection (1 week): Identification and collection of primary and secondary materials and uploading to Dropbox.  This will involve the use of online databases to track both relevant primary provisions and academic and policy commentary about them. 

Stage 2- Preliminary summation and analysis (2 weeks). This stage involves entering all details of the materials found into a suitably-organised excel spreadsheet. Each item needs to be referenced and a brief summary of its content provided. Each item also needs to be coded with appropriate keywords to enable the database to be easily searchable. 

Stage 3- Summary Report (1 week) This stage involves the preparation of a brief report which addresses each of the principal research questions and provides preliminary conclusions for discussion with the research supervisor. The report will:  

1. Provide a brief summary of  the main bounty-hunter and whistle-blower provisions and the reasons why each one was introduced
2. Identify the way they work in practice
3. Identify the main criticisms and supporting arguments that have attended them in legal and public policy spaces.
4. Identify the main arguments regarding their suitability for the Australian legal and political environment.

Expected outcomes and deliverables:

Expected outcomes of this project are:

• A major monograph publication with Oxford University Press by the end of 2022.
• A summary research report
• A journal article in peer-refereed law journal of international standing.
• Possible Opportunities for a variety of HDR projects on private law enforcement.  

What the applicant may gain from the project:

• upgraded skills in primary and secondary source data collection
• experience in finding and handling materials and data drawn from a major foreign jurisdiction
• enhanced excel spreadsheet database skills
• an opportunity to present a summary report (or to share in the presentation of such a report, as you wish) to an expert forum, either in person or via zoom
• an opportunity to publish a joint article (depending on the nature and extent of your input)
• an opportunity to discuss ideas about law enforcement with an enthusiastic legal expert.

Other deliverables/advantages:

• this project will facilitate the production of a major scholarly book (and a journal article) for ERA purposes
• it advances the objectives of both private and public law research groupings within the law school and hopefully provides an opportunity for collaboration between these groupings.
• it also connects with a proposed joint research project on private prosecution with Professor Heather Douglas at Melbourne University, that will strengthen existing links with researchers in that institution.

Suitable for:

• This project is suitable for year 3-5 student.
• You should have a strong record of academic performance
• You must be competent in the use of excel spreadsheets
• Prior experience in working as a research assistant is preferred, but not required
• A strong background in criminal law and procedure, or in other areas of legal regulation (eg competition law/financial regulation/ consumer law) is likely to be an advantage

Primary Supervisor:

Professor Kit Barker

Further info:

If you are interested in this project and wish to know more before applying, please contact me:

k.barker@law.uq.edu.au

Project duration:

21 June – 16 July

Description:

In 2020, the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) came into effect requiring public entities to take into account individuals’ human rights when making decisions. State schools are considered public entities under the Act, and school staff are often required to make decisions affecting the rights of vulnerable children.

The Human Rights Act protects three specific rights pertaining to children: the right of children to protection of their wellbeing and best interests; the right of children not to have their home or family life arbitrarily interfered with; and the right to education.

Children are particularly vulnerable if they have a disability or experience disadvantage. Educators may need to decide whether or not to make a notification to Child Safety in respect of a child who they consider to be at risk of harm. Educators are also required to meet children’s educational needs, and this may overlap with their social, economic and health needs. Special schools play a particularly important role because their entire student cohort may be considered vulnerable.

This project will investigate the intersection between education, child protection and human rights. Educators will be interviewed to ascertain their views on what roles schools, child safety services and other agencies play in protecting vulnerable children, and how they can work together to ensure children’s rights are respected. A particular focus of this research will be special schools, and the challenges they face in protecting the interests of their vulnerable student cohort.

Student scholars will assist by providing a literature review, analysing interview data, and observing (and possibly even conducting) interviews with study participants.

Expected outcomes and deliverables:

Students will gain skills in documentary and empirical research. They will learn about qualitative legal research methodologies. They will expand their knowledge on human rights and children’s rights. If the opportunity arises, the student may have the opportunity to participate as an empirical researcher.

If the quality of the student’s written work is high, they will be invited to co-author the academic paper that results from this research.

This project will benefit the Law School because it involves a partnership with the Queensland Department of Education. The project is currently going through the approval process within the department, and the department has expressed in-principle support for this project. Inclusive education, and ensuring children’s safety and wellbeing, are high priorities for the department, so they are supportive of this research. There may be opportunities for future collaboration if this initial scoping study yields interesting and useful results. (Note: this initial study has no external funding.)

Suitable for:

Students who have completed Children, Young People and the Law or Human Rights Law will be favourably considered. However, this project is appropriate for any student who has an interest in human rights, or applied legal research. Students should have completed at least three years of legal study. A complementary dual degree (particularly those that involve applied research methods), and previous experience in qualitative research, is also preferred (but not essential).

Primary Supervisor:

Prof Tamara Walsh

Further info:

Please contact me with any queries: t.walsh@uq.edu.au

Project duration:

4 weeks
Winter: 21 June – 16 July

Description:

The project is an empirical study of ‘restraint of trade’ clauses in employment contracts. Such clauses restrict the employment or business activities of the employee after their employment ends. For example, they may prevent the employee from working for competitors of their previous employer, or from having dealings with the previous employer’s clients. These clauses can severely affect employees, who may be effectively prevented from working at all, as their skills might only be relevant in the particular industry in which they are prevented from working. Therefore, to balance the interests of employees and employers, the common law imposes limits on restraint of trade clauses; they must be ‘reasonable’, having regard to (among other things) the duration of the restraint and the activities that the employee is prevented from engaging in.

This project will involve gathering empirical data about Australian court decisions on the validity of particular employee restraint of trade clauses. The data will relate particularly to the duration for which the clauses are held to be valid, across (for example) different kinds of restraint, different industries and different States. The data will be gathered solely from published court judgments; the project will therefore involve reading cases and recording information about various aspects of the facts and decision.

Expected outcomes and deliverables:

Students will increase their knowledge of the law relating to employee restraint of trade clauses. They will also obtain skills in empirical legal research, particularly in the emerging area of the empirical study of court decisions. If the project is successful, there is a likelihood of jointly publishing the research with the project supervisors in a peer-reviewed journal.

Suitable for:

Students must have completed Contract I and II. It is also preferred (but not necessary) that students have familiarity with the equitable rules relating to ‘breach of confidence’ (eg from Trusts II or Torts II)

Primary Supervisor:

Dr Andrew Fell

Dr Kate Falconer

Further info:

For further information, contact either andrew.fell@uq.edu.au or k.falconer@uq.edu.au