Professor Ben Mathews’ new book, New International Frontiers in Child Sexual Abuse, offers a timely and detailed exploration and analysis of key contemporary issues and challenges in child sexual abuse, which holds great relevance for scholarly, legal, policy, professional and clinical audiences worldwide.

The book draws together the best current evidence about the nature, aetiology, contexts, and sequelae of child sexual abuse.  It explores the optimal definition of child sexual abuse, considers sexual abuse in history, and explores new theoretical understandings of children’s rights and other key theories including public health and the Capabilities Approach, and their relevance to child sexual abuse prevention and responses.

It examines a selection of the most pressing legal, theoretical, policy and practical challenges in child sexual abuse in the modern world, in developed and developing economies, including institutional child sexual abuse, female genital cutting, child marriage, the use of technology for sexual abuse, and the ethical responsibility and legal liability of major state and religious organisations, and individuals. The book examines a range of developments and issues in civil law, criminal law, and the various ways in which they may best prevent, identify and respond to child sexual abuse.

Professor Ben Mathews

It examines recent landmark legal and policy developments in all of these areas, drawing in particular on extensive developments from Australia in the wake of its Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

It also considers the best evidence about promising strategies and future promising directions in enhancing effective prevention, intervention and responses to child sexual abuse.

About Professor Ben Mathews

Professor Ben Mathews, PhD, LLB, BA, is a Professor and Principal Research Fellow in the Faculty of Law at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.  He is also Director of the Childhood Adversity Research Program in the Faculty of Health, and is an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University in the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In 2015-17 he was Professorial Fellow to the Australian Government’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. His major area of research expertise is in children and the law, with a focus on issues concerning law and child maltreatment, child sexual abuse, civil damages for child abuse, children and educational systems, medico-legal issues, children’s rights, cultural violence against children, and children’s criminal responsibility, and law and ethics.

He has conducted large multidisciplinary studies of law and child abuse and has published extensively in Australia and internationally, with 3 books, 75 refereed articles and book chapters, 18 major government reports, and over 40 conference presentations. (See Full CV)

He serves as a technical advisor to multiple governments on issues regarding child maltreatment law. His research and knowledge translation has led to changes in law, policy and practice in Australia and overseas.

Read about Professor Mathew’s work and his work to ensure our laws protect children and allow survivors to seek justice.

Dr Anna Huggins

Dr Anna Huggins considers the implications of a recent Full Federal Court decision in AusPubLaw.

Dr Anna Huggins examines the case of Pintarich which she says will have implications for the reliance that Australian taxpayers can place on computer-generated correspondence from the Australian Tax Office. It raises interesting and complex questions about when an authorised officer makes a decision, and whether traditional conceptions of what constitutes a ‘decision’ are still appropriate in the digital era.

Automated processes hold promise for enhancing the efficiency and consistency of administrative decisions, particularly in high volume decision-making contexts. However, these advantages need to be weighed against the risks to public trust in government decision making caused by computer-generated errors, for which traditional administrative law doctrines thus far appear to provide limited protection.

As alluded to by Kerr J in his dissenting judgment in Pintarich, legal conceptions of what constitutes a decision and other administrative law doctrines need to evolve to reflect the reality of how decisions are made in practice in the digital age. Mr Pintarich’s unsuccessful appeal to the High Court represents a missed opportunity to further consider what constitutes a decision in an evolving administrative decision-making context.

Find out more about Dr Anna Huggins and her research outputs in e-prints.

QUT Faculty of Law’s Dr Alex Deagon recently published an article in the prestigious Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy which considers whether religious arguments ought to have a place in modern politics. Alex responds to the common objection that religion should not contribute to law and public policy because it can be sectarian, divisive and exclusive.

Rather, Alex proposes that religious contributions are an expression of religious freedom and equality because religious perspectives play essentially the same role as non-religious perspectives in policy debate between citizens, and are often just as contested. More importantly, religious arguments can pursue the public good as least as much as secular ones and so are essential resources for the democratic formulation of policy.

Alex is investigating further research on how religious contributions to public policy might enhance freedom and equality in our modern democracy. This will include an analysis of the US and the UK for insights on how they balance religious freedom with equality which Australia can use in its unique legal and political context.

See Alex’s track record to find out more about his research interests and achievements.