Unit rationale, description and aim
Studying philosophy of law is essential for scholars to engage in reflection on justice, rights, power and obligations. Philosophies of law and justice carry many moral assumptions about social rules, knowledge and truth. Students will compare Western and Indigenous philosophies about the nature of law, different experiences of justice and oppressions. As a foundational offering, students will analyse ancient codes, Western and Indigenous texts and, philosophical treatises. This unit complements Legal Theory unit teachings about legal positivism, the Enlightenment and natural law. As part of that complementarity, students will analyse the intellectual reasoning of feminism and Indigenous women’s decolonisation advocacy in philosophy.
The unit offers an introduction to epistemology through Continental Philosophy – that questioned epistemic certainty about the nature and language of law. Students will analyse philosophies and values of colonialism in comparison to global Indigenous philosophers that deconstructed colonialism. Students will explore a philosophy of being outside the colonial state, examine texts on Indigenous Australian ancestral law and its application. Students will evaluate Indigenous Australian philosophical legal arguments about relationships to land as a philosophy of care. The unit aims to provide understanding of diverse and Indigenous philosophical legal values that contribute to developing practical approaches to intercultural justice.
Campus offering
No unit offerings are currently available for this unit.Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
1. Compare select major Western philosophical appr...
Learning Outcome 01
2. Analyse Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander c...
Learning Outcome 02
3. Examine philosophical approaches to Indigenous ...
Learning Outcome 03
4. Evaluate philosophical principles and concepts ...
Learning Outcome 04
Content
- Ancient concepts of Western law: Hammurabi, Cicero, Aristotle, and Justinian
- Modern Philosophies of justice: Values
- Philosophies of colonialism: Conquest, Orientalism, power and pirates
- Continental Philosophy: Care and epistemic uncertainty
- “Warrior Nomads” outside the colonial state: Cultural difference in intentions
- The way of the Ancestors: First Law and the Gift of Law in Australia
- Societies of laws, land and care: Milirrpum (Gove) case, care and rights of the land
- Feminism, women’s law and decolonisation: Seeking justice in philosophy for women
- The Sui Generis nature of Indigenous peoples’ laws: Does it make a difference?
- Sacred obligations: Intercultural justice and treaty rights.
Assessment strategy and rationale
To pass this unit, students must achieve an overall minimum grade of pass (50%). Rubrics and feedback will be utilised to describe the standard of work expected.
Students will be expected to demonstrate learning outcomes through scaffolded oral and written activities. To assure assessment in the age of generative artificial intelligence, demonstrating learning outcomes will be integrated with supervised in-class interactive exercises, oral assessment and Cadmus for written assignments.
Task 1. In a brief verbal in-class presentation, students will articulate their ideas about classical Western philosophical approaches to law and justice, in comparison to colonialism and modern philosophical approaches of care. This will enable achievement of LO1.
Task 2. In an in-class interactive exercise, students will locate a court case to reflect upon Indigenous Australians’ conceptions of land or governance or justice. Subsequently, students will write a case study contextualising their research with analysis and citations. This will enable achievement of LO2.
Task 3. In a research essay, students will examine philosophical approaches to Indigenous rights in law and justice in political and/or gendered contexts. The purpose is to evaluate philosophical principles, concepts of law and practice in relation to intercultural justice. This will enable achievement of all learning outcomes.
Overview of assessments
1. Seminar Presentation S...
1. Seminar Presentation
Students are expected to participate in tutorials, whether in-person or online, recognising that pre-reading materials and preparation for tutorials contribute to quality group engagement and their own learning.
Assessment Method: Presentation - in-person or online (5 minutes, equivalent 800 words).
Students will present verbally to explain a key concept in philosophies of societies of laws in the context of Indigenous ancestral law.
20%
2. Reflective Case S...
2. Reflective Case Study
In an in-class interactive exercise, students will locate a legal case, to discuss how the case exposes or deals with Western and/or Indigenous philosophies of justice.
Assessment Method: Reflective Report on a Court Case. (1000 to 1500 words)
In their subsequent written assignment, students will identify issues, undertake legal research, analyse the context and different values utilising a range of sources, and communicate their reflections.
The purpose is to develop personal reflective skills about philosophies of law and justice in the context of different values, beliefs and relevant Indigenous peoples’ standpoint.
The purpose is to develop skills in critical reading and analysis across a range of sources (texts, sound, visual arts, audio-visual) and clear communication.
30%
3. Research Essay Students will evaluate ph...
3. Research Essay
Students will evaluate philosophical concepts that inform the nature of laws in the context of intercultural justice and Indigenous social governance.
Assessment Method: Research Essay (1500-2000 words).
The purpose is for students to develop skills that persuade readers of an idea based on evidence, to propose solutions and consider implications arising from questions of philosophy of law and justice.
Students will be expected to analyse a question, locate and reference research, organise their ideas, construct drafts, seek feedback, edit and, finalise citations in support of their argument.
50%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
This unit will be taught through lectures, tutorials, original sources, library research, use of audio and visual materials to hear Indigenous voices, presentations and scholarly debate as part of inquiry-based learning. Students will progress from inquiry (asking questions and gathering information) to analysis (breaking down information, identifying patterns, and evaluating evidence) to applied reflection in practical contexts. Their progress will be supported by scaffolding assessments, a structured path to develop their knowledge skills as they progress through the unit to develop their own conclusions. Accessibility and flexibility in learning will be supported through different modes of delivery.
Lectures with audio and visual materials will provide support and structure for student research and investigation. Tutorials will start with proposing a research question, supported by in-class peer reflections. Students will formulate questions about the topic based on their research. Students will be encouraged to work independently and in small groups to evaluate credibility of the sources and evidence. Educators will facilitate students as a group to reflect and apply their knowledge skills with a focus on “real world” cases. Students will be asked to critically reflect on their research findings addressing socio-economic inequality and rights of Indigenous peoples in an international context.
Representative texts and references
Legal Particulars
Note: Specialist printed materials will be made available free prior to the pre-teaching period.
Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976 (Cth).
Collection of Medieval Laws (400-1399): Anglo-Saxon Law (600-1035), Laws of William the Conqueror 1066 -, Magna Carta, 1215 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/medieval.asp
Hammurabi, The Hammurabi Code. Translated by L. W. King. Introduction and commentary from Charles F. Horne (1915) – online at Yale Law Library.
Justinian, The Digest of Roman Law: Theft, Rapine, Damage and Insult, Translated by C. Kolbert (1979).
Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd (1971) 17 FLR 141 (27 April 1971) Supreme Court (NT).
Text Resources
Annas, Julia and Raphael Woolf. Cicero, On Moral Ends. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Aristotle, Athenian Constitution, translated by Sir Frederic G. Kenyon online at Yale Law Library https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/athemain.asp
Ancient Law: Chapter 4 by Henry Maine <https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/mainea04.asp>.
Australian Law Reform Commission, Recognition of Aboriginal Customary Laws. ALRC Report 31, 1986.
Bell, Diane. Daughters of the Dreaming. McPhee Gribble, 1983
Bell, Diane and Ditton, Pam. Law: The Old and the New. Aboriginal Women in Central Australia Speak Out. Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service, 1980.
Bix, B. Jurisprudence: Theory and Context. Sweet & Maxwell, 2023 (9th Edition)
Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (1768), Vol. 3, pirates (online)
Borrows, John and Leonard I. Rotman, “The Sui Generis of Aboriginal Rights: Does it Make a Difference?”, ch 13 in Anthony J. Connolly (ed) Indigenous Rights (online PDF).
Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism. France, 1955. Translated by Joan Pinkham, Introduction “A Poetics of Anticolonialism”, by Robin D. G. Kelley. Monthly Review Press, 1972. [Césaire on African values, identity, and culture, and their relevance]
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. The Republic and the Laws. Oxford Book Classics
Connolly, Anthony J. Cultural Difference on Trial: The nature and limits of Juridical Understanding. Ashgate, 2010.
Coulthard, Glen. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (University of Minnesota Press, 2014).
De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex (Le Deuxieme Sexe, 1949). Translated and edited by H. M. Parshley. Penguin Books, 1972. Introduction and ch 1 “The Psychoanalytic Point of View”.
Disch, Lisa and Mary Hawkesworth (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. Oxford University Press USA, 2018, especially ch 5 “Coloniality of Gender and Power”.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth, 1961. Translated by Richard Philcox. Introduction by Cornel West, Preface by Jean-Paul Sartre. Grove 2021.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. France: Éditions du Seuil, 1952. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann, Forward by Homi Bhabha, New York: Grove Press, 1967, Pluto Press, 1986, 2008.
Fricker, Miranda and Jennifer Hornsby (eds). The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Fricker, Miranda. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press, 2007
Gammage, Bill. The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia. Allen & Unwin, 2012.
Huber, Vitus and John F. Schwaller, Beyond Cortés and Montezuma: The Conquest of Mexico Revisited. University Press of Colorado, 2025. [Examines European and Nahuatl texts and images on the complex narrative of conquest and contact].
Keal, Paul. “The Political and Moral Legacy of conquest”, ch 5 in European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The moral backwardness of international society. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Kearney, Richard and Mara Rainwater (eds). The Continental Philosophy Reader (Routledge, 1995, reprinted) Reader [phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, and post-structuralism].
Langton, Marcia and Aaron Corn, Law: The Way of the Ancestors. Melbourne: Thames and Hudson, 2023.
Murphy, Julian, Elizabeth Grant, Thalia Anthony. “Indigenous Courthouse and Courtroom Design in Australia: Case Studies, Design Paradigms and the Issue of Cultural Agency”. In The Handbook of Contemporary Indigenous Architecture, 2018, ch. 19
Neidjie, Bill. “Law” in Kakadu Man. MyBrood, 1985.
Nye, Andrea. Philosophy and Feminism. Twayne Publishers, 1995.
Olsen, Henrik Palmer and Stuart.Toddington. Architectures of justice: legal theory and the idea of institutional design (2007) available online.
Pascoe, Bruce. Dark Emu Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident. Magabala Books, Broome, 2014.
Pederson, Oscar. “Alcohol Restrictions in Fitzroy Valley”, in TBC, 83-97 (online PDF)
Reynolds, Henry. The Law of the Land (Penguin, 1988).
Said, Edward. Orientalism, 1978. Penguin, 2021
Sandel, Michael J. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2009.
Sen, Amartya. The Idea of Justice. Harvard University Press, 2011.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’: revised from the “Critique of Postcolonial Reason.” In Can the Subaltern Speak?: Reflections on the History of an Idea, edited by Rosalind C. Morris, 21–78. Columbia University Press, 2010
Sutton, Peter and Keryn Walshe. Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate. Melbourne University Press, 2021.
Tamale, Sylvia. Decolonization and Afro-Feminism. Ottawa: Daraja Press, 2020.
Yunaporta, Tyson, Sandtalk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (Mel: Text, 2019)
Williams, Patricia, Alchemy of Race and Rights. Harvard UP, 1991. 146-65.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. 1792. Any print edition
Audio and Visual Resources – Indigenous Law Perspectives
Artwork
Boyd, Daniel. We call them pirates out here, 2006, oil on canvas, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2006.25. https://www.mca.com.au/collection/artworks/2006.25/
Governor Arthur's Proclamation to the Aborigines, https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/governor-arthurs-proclamation-aborigines
Syron, Gordon. Judgement by his Peers, 1978, oil on canvas. https://gordonsyron.com/art/judgement-by-his-peers-a-work-that-is-already-of-iconic-significance/
Art and Text Petitions for rights and laws
- Maloga Petition – 1870s - 1880s in Attwood,
- Barunga Statement, a painted declaration of land law, included the aspirations of ‘the Indigenous owners and occupiers of Australia’ to ‘recognise our rights’.
- Larrakia Petition is one of the most important documents of Aboriginal peoples’ struggle for land rights in the early 1970s.
- Yirrakala Bark Petitions from the Yolngu people of Yirrkala were the first traditional documents recognised by the Commonwealth Parliament and are thus the documentary recognition of Indigenous people in Australian law.
Audio-VIsual
Marika, Ishmael (Dir), Wanga Watangumirri Dharuk [Law and the Milirrrpum / Gove Case], The Mulka Project, 15:42, https://vimeo.com/38957867
MacLean, Danielle (dir). Emily: I Am Kam. Produded by Anna Grieve. Tamarind Tree Pictures, 2025). 51 minutes
Documentary on Emily Kngwarray, Anmatyerr artist, explaining her connection to law, country and culture.
Song
Kev Carmody, Freedom [Justice will come]. In Bloodlines. Song Cycles Pty Ltd, 1993, 6:49