Safe Access Zone Legislation and Its Compliance with the Human Rights of Anti-Abortion Protesters in Australia.

Terminating a pregnancy is now lawful in all Australian jurisdictions, although on diverse bases. While abortions have not been subject to the same degree of heated debate in Australia as elsewhere, protests aimed at persuading women not to have a termination of their pregnancy have occurred outside abortion service providers in the past. Over the last decade, this has led to the introduction of laws setting out so-called safe access zones around provider premises. Anti-abortion protests are prohibited within a specific distance from abortion services and infringements attract criminal liability. As safe access zone laws prevent protesters from expressing their views in certain spaces, the question arises as to the laws' compliance with protesters' human rights. This article analyses this by considering the human rights compliance of the Queensland ban in light of Queensland human rights legislation. It concludes that the imposed prohibition of anti-abortion protests near abortion clinics is compatible with human rights.

Looking back to look forward-the history of VAD laws in Australia and future law reform in the Australian territories.

Taking one's own life or attempting to do so has long been decriminalised in Australia. Aiding, counselling, or inciting another person to kill him or herself, however, remains a criminal offence. Yet, all six Australian States have now introduced laws allowing assistance in dying under certain circumstances. This article traces the recent history of Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) laws in Australia. It examines the introduction of the world's first assisted dying legislation in the Northern Territory in 1995 followed by the Federal Government's 1997 deprivation of the Territories' power to legislate on assisted dying invalidating said law. It further considers the fifty-seven failed Bills attempting to achieve law reform in this context in Australian jurisdictions between 1993 and 2017 with a view to identifying what factors may have contributed to the continuing lack of success. This article then outlines the rapid introduction of VAD laws in all six Australian States decriminalising VAD over the span of only 5 years. It ponders what may have changed to bring about this law reform. This article closes by contemplating potential future law reform in the Australian Territories, which have been reinstated with jurisdiction to legislate on VAD in December 2022.

SELF-ADMINISTRATION OR PRACTITIONER ADMINISTRATION? THE SCOPE OF FUTURE GERMAN ASSISTED DYING LEGISLATION.

In 2020, the German Federal Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional and void a 2015 criminal law penalising suicide assistance in a recurring fashion and called into existence a right to a self-determined death, including the use of suicide services, where available. Due to subsequent legislative inaction, no holistic assisted dying legislation offering protection for vulnerable individuals is currently in place in Germany. Calls have been made for law reform in this area. This article contemplates the possible scope of a future assisted dying framework in Germany. It does so by focusing on the method of administration and analyses whether such a framework should be limited to allowing eligible persons to self-administer relevant lethal medications, which have been prescribed to them by a medical practitioner or whether, and to what extent, practitioners should be able to administer relevant lethal substances to patients. This is comparatively analysed while also keeping in mind any stipulations made by the German Constitutional Court in its 2020 judgment on the requirements of future assisted dying legislation. The article concludes that an assisted dying framework allowing a free choice between self and practitioner administration in Germany best complies with the guidance provided by the Constitutional Court.

Voluntary Assisted Dying, the Conscientious Objector Who Refuses to Facilitate it and Discrimination Law.

This article discusses the aspect of recent voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws dealing with a health care provider who declines to provide VAD services. While the law permits the provider to do so, it is sometimes less clear what, if anything, they must do to facilitate VAD service provision by others. Legislation in three jurisdictions is silent on the matter. This article considers refusals to facilitate VAD services, in light of human rights provisions, particularly anti-discrimination legislation, and the guidance available internationally. Existing VAD literature does not consider discrimination arguments in relation to refusal to participate.

A new research strategy for integrating studies of paleoclimate, paleoenvironment, and paleoanthropology.

Paleoanthropologists (scientists studying human origins) universally recognize the evolutionary significance of ancient climates and environments for understanding human origins. Even those scientists working in recent phases of human evolution, when modern humans evolved, agree that hunter-gatherer adaptations are tied to the way that climate and environment shape the food and technological resource base. The result is a long tradition of paleoanthropologists engaging with climate and environmental scientists in an effort to understand if and how hominin bio-behavioral evolution responded to climate and environmental change. Despite this unusual consonance, the anticipated rewards of this synergy are unrealized and, in our opinion, will not reach potential until there are some fundamental changes in the way the research model is constructed. Discovering the relation between climate and environmental change to human origins must be grounded in a theoretical framework and a causal understanding of the connection between climate, environment, resource patterning, behavior, and morphology, then move beyond the strict correlative research that continues to dominate the field.

"Till Death Us Do Part": Homicide Defenses for Women in Abusive Relationships-Similar Problems-Different Responses in Germany and Australia.

Cases in which women have killed their sleeping or otherwise inattentive abusive partners to "escape" domestic violence have arisen in both Germany and Australia. In this context, the availability of defenses including provocation and self-defense for abused defendants is controversially debated due to their traditional application and interpretation. It appears that these cases have driven law reform and changed judicial interpretation of defenses to some degree in Australia, whereas the situation in Germany remains stagnant. This article argues that while the situation in Australia is not without criticism, the recent legislative developments aimed at affording abused defendants greater access to defenses could serve as food for legal thought in the German debate.