Mika Tsoi
Volume 3, Issue 8, (Originally Published on Monday 29th April)
 
The June exams will be in the Royal Exhibition Building. June mornings in Melbourne can be cold. They try and heat the REB with the little heaters. Those work if you’re sitting directly under them and for no one else. If you sit in a cold enough place for three and a half hours, your hands may turn blue and your teeth start chattering. You won’t be able to write and you’ll be under suspicion for collaboration by sending exam answers in Morse code through your making sounds.
 
Let’s avoid that.
 
If you’re someone who gets cold easily or has poor circulation, be prepared with the following tips:
 
• Fingerless gloves
• Warm wheat pack
• Hot water bottle
• Ear muffs
• Beanies
• Thermals
• A few extra layers.
 
Also remember that these will be subject to scrutiny by the invigilators.
 
The most crucial parts are your head, hands and feet. Your hands do the writing, your head the thinking and your feet the walking to the bathroom.
 
Take a short break, go to the bathroom and run warm water over your hands.
 
Try your methods out when you’re writing your practice exams. You are writing practice exams, right? Yes. Try them out and see which one works for you. Remember the mantra: nothing new on exam day.
 
Mika Tsoi

Christine Todd
Volume 3, Issue 8, (Originally Published on Monday 29th April)
 
Guys, I’ve been bitten by the mid-semester cynicism bug.
 
I don’t know what I want to do with my degree, I don’t know why I care about judicial review, and the ideals I came to the MLS with have long left the building, tumbling hopelessly across the Pelham Street wind tunnel.
 
I googled ‘disillusioned law student’ for the purposes of this piece and my laptop nearly imploded under the wealth of Google Search options.
 
This was all brought on by summer resumé building and clerkship applications forcing me to do what I’ve so successfully avoided for 25 years: think seriously about the future.
 
The entire exercise has left an unusual sense that I’m being funnelled into a desperate, all-or-nothing clerkship application process, rather than being suitably matched based on skill and interest. I understand the inherent value of clerkships, but feel nothing for the process, nor the pool of placement options of which I never really wanted in the first place.
 
So how does one tackle the despondency of law school disillusionment?
 
For a start, when thinking about legal career options, it’s unwise to assume that you’ll fit into the one-size fits all lawyer mould that can be so heavily promoted in the course content. Many of you will make fantastic private sector lawyers, making your firm of choice fabulously rich in the process. Some of you have already started looking absolutely smashing in a suit and tie around the building.
 
I’m a fan of that.
 
But there are countless other career avenues in which to put your hardearned law degree to work.
 
Fortunately, I’ve done the work for you, so they’re outlined below. You can thank me later. With coffee.
 
1. For those with a taste for the political, there are policy-advising positions for local, state or federal government agencies to consider. Most positions are situated in our favourite cowtown, Canberra, but dedicated research will bring up a bevy of Melbourne-based positions. The pay won’t be as delectable, but you’ll have a higher chance of feeling as if the work you do means something.
 
2. For those with a skill for the quill, a career in legal publishing beckons. An editor of legal publications will utilise their exceptional skills in research to keep abreast of current and past legal cases and legislation, and can often be called upon to pass commentary on them. It’s academic-lite!
 
3. For those that want in on court action, without necessarily bringing an action to court, there are countless administrative positions within the Australian court system that provide invaluable insight into the practical application of the law. Registrars, judge’s associates, you name it, the work is there. Get your foot in the door and advancement is almost guaranteed, with on the job learning a certain advantage.
 
4. For those that like helping people see that their demands are stupidly obnoxious, a career in alternative dispute resolution may be your cup of tea. You don’t necessarily need to have a law degree to achieve mediator accreditation, but a thorough understanding of the realities of the law will ensure you can help clients highlight that pre-litigation settlement is their best bet. You’ll need excellent communication and conflict resolution skills, an ability to remain impartial, and an astronomical amount of patience.
 
5. For those of you with an eye on international affairs, international development agencies are very keen on picking up intelligent, world-savvy law students. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch offer internships at various locations around the globe. You’ll be conducting research, drafting documents, monitoring human rights violations, and participating in advocacy work in the event of those violations. If you’re fluent in a second language, all the better.
 
6. And for those of you that just like doing your own damn thing, take the initiative and open your own business. You’ll be your own boss, have flexible hours (a bonus for those of us with families at home), and your MLS experience will leave you perfectly capable of drawing up super inflexible contracts to lock your clients into.
 
The relevance of a law degree can extend well beyond the practice of law, and of itself tells potential employers that you’re intelligent, disciplined, hardworking and highly analytical, qualities that are relevant and transferable to just about any career you can think of. So think outside of the box when it comes time to make those icky decisions about ‘the future’. I still have no freakin’ idea what I want to do with this degree, but you’ve got to admit my options are pretty peachy.
 
Christine Todd

Dean R. P. Edwards
Volume 3, Issue 8, (Originally Published on Monday 29th April)
 
The Law Students’ Society Equality Portfolio is looking for JDs interested in helping young people transition from secondary school to university, as part of the Stepping Stones pilot program launching this year.
 
Applications close this Wednesday, 1 May 2013.
 
Equality Director Caitlin Edwards said that the program, which is geared toward secondary school students from low socio-economic backgrounds, hopes to attract JD students “who are genuinely interested in assisting young people in their journey from secondary school to university.”
 
Those with an interest in issues involving access to education, and those with previous experience in youth mentoring and working with disadvantaged youth, are encouraged to apply, she added.
 
Edwards and co-Equality Director Duncan Mackenzie have enlisted two co-opt directors, second-year Joanna Abrahams and first-year Giorgina McCormack, to help run the pilot program. In addition, Edwards said the pilot has received “a lot of support” from Street Law subject coordinator Lucy Quinn and MLS Public Law Interest Program director Joanne Kerr.
 
According to Edwards, a similar program called ‘Inspire High School Mentoring’, run in 2011, was “largely successful and received great feedback from the JD mentors and secondary school participants.” She noted that the Equality Portfolio hopes that by “aligning Stepping Stones with the schools [that] engage with the MLS subject ‘Street Law’ will make for a more sustainable programs.”
 
Successful applicants for the pilot will take part in a launch event at MLS later this year. JD mentors and their secondary school mentees will have a chance to meet for the first time at the event. Edwards said that the program comprises “a series of school visits and excursions throughout the year, and a closing event in November.”
 
Applications are available online at <http://bit.ly/15QjKed>.
 
Dean R. P. Edwards

Melissa Peach
Volume 3, Issue 8, (Originally Published on Monday 29th April)
Last Monday, Associate Professor Treasa Dunworth from Auckland Law School spoke about toxic chemicals as weapons in law enforcement.
 
Dunworth has a PhD on the human dimension of arms control and disarmament and has researched the technical aspects of weapons systems while on the Preparatory Commission of the Prevention of Chemical Weapons in Geneva.
 
Dunworth began her presentation with a discussion of the 2002 Moscow Theatre Siege, in which 40 rebels took 800 hostages and booby trapped the theatre to further their political aims for Chechen freedom from Russia. After three days, Russian forces pumped fentanyl, an opiate-like morphine usually given to cancer patients, into the theatre. As a result, all of the rebels were killed, as well as 129 hostages – a 15 per cent fatality rate.
 
For Dunworth, this example posed the question of whether the use of chemical weapons was a paradigm for law enforcement or counterterrorism. A non-lethality issue was also raised: how many would have died but for the actions of the Russian forces? The 15 per cent fatality rate here was still less than the 23 per cent fatality rate for Aum Shinrikyo’s 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.
 
To describe these events in terms of lethality by saying that this event was less lethal than others is troubling, Dunworth articulated. She described a blurring of the boundary of law enforcement and the legal system in this sense; in terms of a humanitarian impulse aspect, this is troubling. But at the same time, the humanitarianimpulse doesn’t give us answers as to what we should do.
 
Dunworth addressed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the number of ambiguities within it. She emphasized that the taboo against using chemical weapons should make us cautious in interpreting the treaty, and examined the humanitarian dimension of disarmament. A humanitarian discourse doesn’t work in disarmament because of its emphasis on human security as opposed to strategic security and the way that civil society participates in the disarmament discussion.
 
The CWC’s purpose is one of disarmament and nonproliferation, and an absolute prohibition on the use of chemical weapons. In defining what a chemical weapon is, art 11(1)(a) of the CWC states that they are “toxic chemicals and their precursors, except where intended for purposes not prohibited”. Toxic chemicals are defined as any chemical which through its chemical action or life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans and animals.
 
Law enforcement, including domestic riot control purposes, is a purpose not prohibited. This was so that riot control agents, or “any chemical which can rapidly produce in humans sensory irritation or short term disability effects” (art 11.7), could be used to keep peace. It is not the case that chemicals are only for weapons purposes; there is a spectrum of chemicals ranging from most toxic and medium toxicity, to low risk.
 
The biggest source of debate is the question of degree of use, as under art 1.5, each state party cannot use riot control agents as a method of warfare. Under the CWC, examples such as Italy’s use of chemical warfare against Ethiopia and Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Kurds in Halabja would have been banned, but the use of tear gas in the 2007 riots would have been an exception because of the domestic riot control use.
 
However, the distinction blurs in situations such as when the UK used tear gas in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, and whether or not UN troops can use chemical agents when they are deployed, and it matters more whether there was a law enforcement purpose in these instances.
 
This issue reflects the gaps in understanding the CWC. Because the CWC was concluded with so much ambiguity, it is difficult to define its terms. Prima facie, the CWC is on the permissive side and there is nothing that limits law enforcements to irritants. However, since the object of the Convention is prohibitory, great care needs to be taken with exceptions and to ensure that law enforcement only uses irritants.
 
The clear ambiguity in the CWC’s definition of chemical weapons tends to undermine the taboo of chemical weapons. The exception here is too big and needs to be read down, as is generally the rule of treaty interpretation. The Convention itself envisaged 10 years to destroy chemical agents, but this has proved to be difficult. Although it is an enforceable, verifiable treaty, the enforceability aspect is weak. While it looks like a heavyweight treaty, Dunworth argued, it relies on a taboo for the brunt of its force.
 
Thus, a restrictive view in interpretation favors humanitarians more. The Treaty excludes all chemical agents except for purposes not prohibited, but exceptions are corrosive. In looking at humanitarian discourse, Dunworth initially intended to use her thesis as a cautionary tale. By using the language of humanitarianism in saying that at least it isn’t bad as some other options, the treaty is then presented as an obstacle. In the long term, if states start using these incapacitants notwithstanding the taboo of chemical weapons, it opens up an exception in the treaty which could end up being a slippery slope.
 
Melissa Peach