About

The AC Law Lecture Series is intended to provide a public forum for lawyers and general public by prominent lawyers, jurists, and legal scholars, while fostering engagement with important questions of law and jurisprudence.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Paul Taylor will be the next lecturer at the Alphacrucis Law Lecture Series. The title of his public lecture will be “The latest generation of human rights charters: A hyper-politicised re-imagining of genuine human rights.”

Date: Wednesday, 21 October 2026
Location: Alphacrucis University College, 30 Cowper St, Parramatta NSW
Time: 6:00pm for 6:30pm start

Augusto Zimmermann, Professor and Foundation Dean of Law, will offer a few remarks on the purpose and mission of developing a premier law school for Australia, grounded in the classical model of legal education.
Opening the evening is Keith Francis, a barrister who practises with expertise in the areas of Succession Law, Equity, and Family Law. He has served as a law academic teaching Remedies, Procedure, Equity & Trusts, and has regularly chaired the Wills & Estates Intensive programs for UNSW.

Title:

“The latest generation of human rights charters: A hyper-politicised re-imagining of genuine human rights”

Abstract

The latest style of charter model, fashioned by the Australian Human Rights Commission and followed in bills recently proposed in NSW and federal parliaments, is quite different from any existing charter in the ACT, Victoria and Queensland, or anywhere else.
It perpetuates many of the idiosyncrasies of existing charters, but by including economic social and cultural rights in a novel way, it would impact powerfully on numerous issues of acute political sensitivity.
Courts and public authorities would be given far greater discretion than international human rights law allows, both to restrict rights unjustifiably, and preference some over others.
the statue book would have to be read in a way that is rights-compliant, according to a model that reconfigures civil and political rights, and gives prominence to economic social and cultural rights, which are inherently political in nature.
The latest generation of charter poses serious legal, political and practical challenges.

About the Speaker:

Dr Paul M Taylor is an Honorary Law Lecturer in the University of Queensland’s T.C. Beirne School of Law, and Fellow of the Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law. His principal academic interests are international human rights law and conflict of laws. He has held Visiting Fellowships at Wolfson College, Cambridge (twice) and at the Centre for International and Public Law, College of Law, Australian National University.  

His most significant research works include UK and EC Competition Law and Compliance (Sweet & Maxwell, 1999, 600pp); Freedom of Religion: UN and European Human Rights Law and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2005, 400pp); and A Commentary on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: The UN Human Rights’ Committee’s Monitoring of ICCPR Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2020, 900pp.)

He qualified as an English barrister in 1981. From 1982 to 2002 he was in private practice in the UK, initially at the criminal bar and then as a partner in a large law firm in which he specialised in competition law and intellectual property. During that time, he also regularly taught and wrote substantial texts on competition law, intellectual property and human rights. He is a seasoned human rights advocate, with experience in trial observation, fact-finding and legal support behind the Iron Curtain and (after the break-up of the Soviet Union) in the Middle East.

Date

Location

Alphacrucis University College Sydney
30 Cowper Street, Parramatta NSW 2150

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