The Cambridge legal history of Australia /

• Main Authors: Cane, Peter, Ford, Lisa, McMillan, Mark David
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: http://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1248417

"The editorial project we set for ourselves was to assemble a legal history of Australia. As this continent has been occupied by human communities for more than 60,000 years, this is, of course, an impossible task. We have approached it cautiously and partially. The essays in this volume explore encounters of laws, people and place in Australia since 1788. They address at least three distinct aspects of this broad topic. One concerns the complex unfolding of Australian settler law in the shadow of the British Empire. It begins with the fundamental tenet of British imperial law - that English law applied in settled colonies to the extent that it was appropriate to local circumstances and conditions. Many of the essays in the volume go on to explore the employment and adaptation of inherited laws and ideologies for the legal project of settler nationbuilding after federation. A second aspect of the broad theme of encounter concerns interaction between settler law and First Nations people: it concerns ways in which and the extent to which introduced and adapted laws were applied to Aboriginal and Torres"--