Margaret Stone Lecture with The Hon. Justice Nye Perram

In the second Margaret Stone Lecture, The Honourable Justice Nye Perram will consider Private Property and Public Rights: a new phenomenon?

The Anglo-American legal tradition has long encumbered some private property rights with burdens in favour of the public or the State. These have ranged from uses of commons through to legislative enlistment or appropriation and, in certain circumstances, exercises of executive power to similar effect. Modern statutes create whole classes of regulated assets which may be used against the wishes of their owners but the mingling of private property and State utilisation of that property is not new and the practice can be discerned both with tangible assets, such a railways, wharves and toll roads, as well as many species of intellectual property.

The paper explores whether there is any unifying theme underpinning these inroads into private ownership of property.

About the speaker:

Nye Perram is a judge of the Federal Court to which he was appointed in 2008. He is also the President of the Copyright Tribunal and a former part-time commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission. Prior to his appointment he practiced as senior counsel at the New South Wales Bar. He commenced legal practice in 1993 and was called to the Bar in 1994. He holds a BCL (Dist) from Oxford University, an LLB(Hons) from the University of Sydney together with a BA majoring in Pure Mathematics and English literature. He is a fan of Tom Holland, Dominic Sandbrook and poached eggs served with hollandaise sauce.

About the Margaret Stone Lecture:

The Margaret Stone Lecture co-hosted by the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney and Herbert Smith Freehills honours the life and contribution to the law of the late Hon Margaret Stone AO FAAL. Amongst her many achievements, Justice Stone was a much-loved and revered teacher at UNSW Sydney, a partner at Freehill, Hollingdale and Page and a judge of the Federal Court of Australia. In her later life she undertook a number of important roles in the public service including as the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

The creation of this lecture has been with the support and encouragement of Justice Stone’s family. The organisers thank the Federal Court of Australia for its support of this Lecture.