Upcoming Events
SYDNEY EVENT
National Centre for Biosecurity: Signing Ceremony
On 2 September 2008, the National Centre for Biosecurity (NCB) officially became a joint-enterprise between the Australian National University (ANU) and The University of Sydney. This important event was inaugurated by the signing of an agreement between the two universities by Professor Ian Chubb, Vice Chancellor of ANU, and Dr Michael Spence, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney.
CAPPE's Dr. Michael Selgelid is a founding member of the NCB and will serve as Deputy Director of the ANU node of the Centre; Professor Seumas Miller is on the NCB advisory board.
The signing ceremony will be followed by the launch of a book, Ethical and Philosophical Consideration of the Dual-Use Dilemma in the Biological Sciences authored by Miller and Selgelid. Professor Miller will be available at the ceremony to provide some comments on the book and to sign copies. He will be introduced by Professor Merlin Crossley, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Sydney.
Date: Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Time: 3 - 5pm
Venue: Sutherland Room, Holme Building, University of Sydney (Main Campus)
Click to download an invitation
Some information on the National Centre for Biosecurity and this new collaboration is below:
The new NCB’s chief aim is to facilitate greater academic and policy engagement with biosecurity challenges facing Australia and its region. Biosecurity, as the NCB defines it, is concerned with infectious disease threats to human and animal health, encompassing:
- biological weapons threats
- naturally-occurring disease outbreak disasters
- safety and security of laboratory research on pathogenic micro-organisms
- the relationship between infectious disease patterns, public health capacity, state functioning and violent conflict.
NCB deals with biosecurity problems of great importance to Australia and our regional neighbours. East Asia is a flashpoint for disease emergencies and Australia plays a critical role as a repository of technical knowledge and expertise. The NCB enhances this capacity by dealing specifically with biosecurity issues of importance to the region (e.g. Avian influenza, SARS).
The NCB will focus on the research and policy questions of relevance to business and government. An important aspect of our mission is engaging with policymakers and the wider community, including business leaders, in helping them to understand emerging infectious disease threats and other biosecurity concerns.
The NCB is unique within the region. No other program which deals with the security implications of infectious disease in such an interdisciplinary fashion exists within the region. The NCB is the first of its kind, and seeks to explore regional issues that European and US-based biosecurity research has so far ignored.
The NCB includes a wide range of expertise across a diverse set of faculties from both universities. Faculty members with strong research programs provide input from the disciplines of business, veterinary science, law, epidemiology, ethics, public health, international politics, and microbiology. The program is truly interdisciplinary in its mission and in its approach to solving biosecurity challenges.
The collaborative nature of the NCB allows it to bring to bear the broadest and deepest pool of expertise to regional biosecurity problems. Both the Australian National University and the University of Sydney have complementary strengths in areas such as veterinary health, epidemiology, microbiology, international politics and ethics; combined expertise which is essential to solving complex biosecurity problems.
For additional information, see: www.biosecurity.edu.au
CANBERRA EVENTS
The freedom paradox. Towards a post-secular ethics - Professor Clive Hamilton
5 August 2008, Co-op Bookshop, Union Court, Australian National University.
Launched by Justice Michael Kirby. Click to download an flyer
Click on thumbnails below for a larger image
More about The freedom paradox. Towards a post-secular ethics
Criminal Justice Ethics Workshop: Criminalization
On Thursday 3 July 2008, CAPPE Canberra sponsored a half-day workshop that centred
around Professor Douglas
Husak's recently published Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law (OUP, 2008), and coincided with his visit to CAPPE. Husak (Philosophy, Rutgers University)
argues that justifiable criminalization requires the satisfaction of a set of several internal and external constraints, viz.
Internal
(1) nontrivial harm or evil;
(2) wrongfulness;
(3) desert;
(4) burden of proof
External
(5) substantial governmental interest;
(6) directly advances the government's objective;
(7) no more extensive than necessary;
Three paper assessing different aspects of Husak's work were presented:
Dr. Robert Young (La Trobe University): "Douglas Husak and the malum prohibitum Offence
of Money Laundering
Professor Heidi M. Hurd (University of Illinois Law School): "Paternalism on pain of Punishment"
Professor Michael S. Moore (University of Illinois Law School): "A Tale of Two Theories"
Douglas Husak responded to each of the papers prior to a fruitful general discussion among the 25-30 participants. The papers will be revised and, along with additional papers by Victor Tadro (Warwick)
and A.P. Simester (Singapore/Cambridge), will be published in a symposium, along with a formal response by Husak in Criminal Justice Ethics in 2009.
Subsequent to his CAPPE Canberra visit, Husak visited CAPPE Melbourne.
Click on thumbnails below for a larger image
(left to right) Professor John Kleinig (CAPPE), Professor Douglas Husak (Rutgers), Professor Michael S. Moore (Illinois), Professor Tom Campbell (Director - CAPPE), Dr. Robert Young (La Trobe), Professor Heidi M. Hurd (Illinois)
Saskia Hufnagel (PhD student, Law, ANU), Professor Tom Campbell (Director - CAPPE)
Professor Douglas Husak (Rutgers)
(left to right) Professor John Kleinig (CAPPE), Professor Douglas Husak (Rutgers), Professor Michael S. Moore (Illinois), Professor Tom Campbell (Director - CAPPE), Dr. Robert Young (La Trobe), Professor Heidi M. Hurd (Illinois)