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While devoting fine attention to the stuff of everyday life, Deborah Cass was also a brilliant scholar. Although the deep sense of loss and sadness at Deborah's death remains, it is wonderful to have her writings as a continuing source of inspiration and consolation. In them, we continue to hear Deborah's firm, clear voice, her appreciation of language, her seriousness, her curiosity, her sensitivity and her wry humour.' —Professor Hilary Charlesworth This collection honours the work of Deborah Cass, 15 February 1960 – 4 June 2013, a brilliant Australian constitutional and international lawyer. Deborah studied at the University of Melbourne and Harvard Law School and taught at Melbourne Law School, The Australian National University and the London School of Economics. A member of The Australian National University's Centre for International and Public Law from 1993 to 2000, Deborah's work offered illuminating new perspectives in a range of fields, from the right to self-determination, critical international legal theory, and feminist legal theory to the international trade law system. The title of this edited collection draws on one of her articles, 'Traversing the Divide: International Law and Australian Constitutional Law' (1998) 20 Adelaide Law Review 73. This book evolves from a symposium held to draw together academics from around the globe to reflect on Deborah's extensive scholarship and contributions to public law and international law, and to examine how her work is of value to current domestic and international law issues. The pieces selected for this volume both remind us of Deborah's outstanding academic career and provide important insights on current public law and international law pressing issues.

When I was asked to transform my paper delivered at the 1995 Feminist Legal Academic Workshop into a Legal Education Review article, I expanded my outline into a slightly more detailed form. In looking at incorporating "feminist material" into the curriculum I concentrated on citizenship in light of my teaching and research interests in constitutional law, administrative law and migration law. As I have recently begun to think of these matters in my teaching, much of my talk looked at options and possibilities; in many ways it was a list of possible material that could be included in public law courses. On its submission for publication, I was tactfully informed that it "was not suitable for publishing ., as it [was] still very much a conference paper". I was asked to remove the conversational language, and apart from changing the style, I was also asked to give more detailed information about the material that could be included in the public law courses and how that material could be used. I agree with the latter concerns and this article attempts to advance my conference paper. However, the question of style and content "suitable for a law review article" highlights a critical issue which also impacts on this topic. This article proposes that we recognise that there are different ways of imparting information in the written form, and that the conversational piece is a legitimate part of legal scholarship. Moreover, our curriculum should include creative styles of legal expression for our students to accommodate and encourage difference. This will in turn assist us in our feminist concerns about citizenship and the law school curriculum. Furthermore, it is vital that we consider the teaching of material in ways that include the political contexts within which public law exists. Therefore, in changing my conference paper into this article, I am relying to some extent on some of the scholarship of critical theory; in particular, the embracing of subjectivity of perspective and the avowedly political. Often the method of critical discourse is the narrative, and I am maintaining the narrative style of my original conference paper, relying upon my own teaching experience. My story is therefore seeking to emphasise the message of the critical movement of being concerned with the stories that highlight the different political issues at play. It seeks to show that many stories are excluded from public law forums because of the way we speak about public law. Part of our role as teachers is to reclaim the stories and the greater political contexts within which citizenship is exercised in public law. Sometimes this means listening to and thinking about legal issues in styles and formats that are not considered publishable by mainstream journals.

Due to the continuing expansion of the notion of security, various national, regional and international institutions now find themselves addressing contemporary security issues. While institutions may evolve by adjusting themselves to new challenges, they can also fundamentally alter the intricate balance between security and current legal frameworks. This volume explores the tensions that occur when institutions address contemporary security threats, in both public and international law contexts. As part of the Connecting International with Public Law series, it provides important and valuable insights into the legal issues and perspectives which surround the institutional responses to contemporary security challenges. It is essential reading for scholars, practitioners and policy makers seeking to understand the legal significance of security institutions and the implications of their evolution on the rule of law and legitimacy.

"This collection of essays examines the development and application of environmental laws and the relationship between public laws and international law. Notions of good governance, transparency and fairness in decision-making are analysed within the area of the law perceived as having the greatest potential to address today's global environmental concerns. International trends, such as free trade and environmental markets, are also observed to be infiltrating national laws. Together, the essays illustrate the idea that in the context of environmental problems being dynamic and environmental changes appearing suddenly, laws become difficult to design and effect. Typically, they are also devised within a conflicted setting. It is in this changeable and discordant context that environmental discourses such as precaution, justice, risk, equity, security, citizenship and markets contribute to legal responses, present legal opportunities or hinder progress"--

Security is a dynamic, context-dependent concept that is inevitably shaped by social conditions and practices. The socio-political perception of security threats influences our security policies relevant to political decisions about the design of social institutions specifically addressing those security concerns. Security is traditionally understood to be physical protection of national territory and its population from the destructive effects of warfare through military means. Social institutions including but not limited to national governing institutions, inter-governmental institutions and the military are all devices developed through human history to collectively address traditional security threats. Security is often considered to be an antithesis of the rule of law and civil liberty, justifying violation of rules and the restriction of freedom. However, the development of international law and the institutionalisation of international public authorities have contributed to the increased normalcy or containment of extra-legal responses to security threats. For example, the Charter of the United Nations ('UN Charter') provides institutionalised mechanisms as the means of regulating the behaviour of sovereign states and conflict among them. The nuclear non-proliferation regime establishes mechanisms for preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and facilitating the development of peaceful nuclear energy technology by institutionalising the asymmetric obligations between designated nuclear-weapon states and other non-nuclear-weapon states.