Legal geography case study

Presenting author: Jacob Deem (Central Queensland University)

Other author: Alexandra McEwan (Central Queensland University)

Amongst its many impacts on social interactions, Covid-19 affected the way citizens protest. With the opportunity for protesting together, in person, often unavailable, the utility of online protest came to the fore. This paper combines traditional legal analysis with insights from legal geography to develop a perspective on cyberspace as a 'place' in which protest occurs. It explores the consequences of cyberspace as 'place' for the implied freedom of political communication. Recent amendments to the Criminal Code introducing 'ag-gag' provisions and the decision in Police Commissioner v Gray provide case studies to consider cyberspace as a 'place' where political communication can be regulated. As background, we consider the meaning of 'protest' and examine how place functions in a physical protest in the context of recent High Court decisions in Brown v Tasmania and Clubb v Edwards; Preston v Avery. We focus on the Court's view that the place in which protest is held can be integral to the political communication itself. The analysis demonstrates that protests in cyberspace can fulfil similar functions as those held in the physical realm. Thus, the internet can operate as a 'place' at which protest, and political communication occur.

Presenting author: Karly Burch (University of Otago)

Other authors: Katharine Legun (Wageningen University), Dawn Nafus (Intel), Laurens Klerkx (Wageningen University)

Collaborative design (co-design) is a popular method for ensuring new technologies are beneficial to users and society at large by including those people whose lives will be impacted by new technologies as collaborators in design processes. While increasing responsiveness between researchers and societal actors is essential for building relevant technologies, frictions can emerge as the inclusion required for collaboration is put in tension with exclusionary practices in modern sciences, particularly processes in place to protect intellectual property (IP).

Our paper explores early, low-stakes IP/collaboration frictions observed in the MaaraTech Project-a dynamic trans-disciplinary project co-designing robotic and human assist agri-technologies with AI capabilities in Aotearoa New Zealand. Drawing from feminist science and technology studies (STS), we offer located response-ability as an analytic tool for better understanding, addressing and anticipating IP/collaboration tensions in the context of a situated design project.

Presenting author: Alexandra McEwan (Central Queensland University)

This paper presents a study undertaken in partnership with Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV), a Vietnamese non-government organisation working to end Vietnam's illegal wildlife trade(ENV 2019). The study involved the analysis of ENV case files (n = 41) relating to seizures for illegal hunting and trading of the douc langur (genus Pygathrix) made in Vietnam. The douc langur is a genus of old-world monkey comprising three critically endangered species (International Union for the Conservation of Nature). One of the main drivers of the trade of the douc langur in Vietnam and China is for its use in what is commonly known as 'Traditional Chinese Medicine', 'bone glue' or cao (Nadler 2014: 54). 

This paper discusses the study in terms of legal geography, in which trading routes were traced according to two axes. The first axis was the three species' discrete geographical distribution. The second axis was the province in which each seizure occurred. Province is  Vietnam's basis jurisdictional unit and provided the key legal reference point. When combined, geographical distribution and province offered a lens through which it was possible to develop an understanding of the trade and use of the douc langur within Vietnam and across its borders.