Introduction
There is no shortage of discussion around the meaning of globalization and internationalization of the law curriculum.2 The topic is of interest to legal scholars and legal educators in both a discipline and pedagogical sense,3 but also to universities in their quest for increased enrolments and to students who seek, so we are told, maximum portability of their qualification in the âglobal employment marketplaceâ.
The position of the profession in this picture is somewhat more diverse. Organizations such as the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, ASEAN Law Association or Law Association for Asia and the Pacific (LAWASIA) have an interest in law in a transnational and international context, and increasingly the profession is calling for greater international engagement, including law graduates with knowledge of international contexts of law and prepared for global practice. However within particular jurisdictions it is the local profession that regulates entry to membership, and therefore the educational requirements of lawyers. This focus tends to be on the law of the jurisdiction in question, but also on the skills required to serve the community within that jurisdiction. This latter aspect of legal education presupposes an understanding of the community we serve. It plays out within Australia, where there are calls for development of skills and knowledge required for rural and regional practice: a particularly local context.
There is an additional local context that falls between the international and local âat homeâ: that of the âlocalsâ of an overseas jurisdiction. These people are not the clients of the international or transnational lawyer, but people who are affected by the consequences of international and transnational transactions. Consider the example of the Panguna Mine in Papua New Guinea (PNG).4
Australiaâs close northern neighbour, PNG, is rich in natural resources. Governed by Australia for many years until its independence in 1975, Australia has had an ongoing interest in PNG through both aid programs and investment - and the two are often inextricably linked - notably in mining. Bougainville Copper owns the Panguna open cut mine on Bougainville. The mine has been sitting idle since 1989 as a consequence of sabotage by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army, which sought secession from PNG and closure of the mine on environmental grounds.
To structure the acquisition and operation of the mine would have required an army of lawyers schooled in transnational dealings. Rio Tinto and the PNG Government are majority shareholders in Bougainville Copper. This structuring alone would have required sophisticated legal advice. Likewise, resources law itself in PNG required a lawyerly hand. It is significant that the framework for resource ownership echoes that of Australia, where resources are owned by the state, which differs from traditional Melanesian concept of land ownership, vested in traditional owners.
The structure of the mining rights and the mineâs operation have resulted in severe environmental problems and impoverishment of the local people through lack of economic benefit flowing to them. This has contributed to armed resistance and ultimately a challenge to PNGâs sovereignty through a bloody civil war. These issues could be thought of as representing the confluence of very local problems wrought by an abstracted transnational view of a legal transaction. Now that the mine has closed, this is also an economic issue for the company itself - an asset lying idle. Surely this was an unsustainable model that reflects a lack of understanding of local context.
What this illustrates is that what might be my âinternationalâ experience is the local experience of someone else. The local and the international in this case, are inherently connected. For those lawyers who will advise in such matters, it is not enough to be educated in international laws, or simply in local laws. To have made a success of this project, for example, required different types of knowledge, skills and attitudes.
How are we to design curricula that meet these ostensibly divergent objectives? How can we address both the local - the local here and the local there - and the international?
This chapter recounts the ongoing path of the James Cook University (âJCUâ) Law School in Far North Queensland. The Law School has two regional campuses, separated by 350km. It serves the local community, including the local profession but is also cognizant of its relationship with the wider region, the state and the nation, as well as within the Asia-Pacific region.
In doing so, this chapter suggests ways in which we might think differently not just about what we do in the law curriculum, but why and how we do it - so that we can hope to reconcile the global and the local, as well as address the other imperatives of the contemporary law degree.
Internationalization and Other Imperatives in Australian Legal Education
Australian law schools are facing increasing calls to offer an internationalized curriculum. These calls come from two directions.
The first is the now international market for students. Universities are competing on a global scale and seek to attract a global cohort. The law degree, traditionally jurisdictionally based, now needs to find ways to respond to this market imperative. Additionally, our graduates seek qualifications that will serve them internationally - whether they are local or from overseas. To be competitive, our law degrees must offer a set of portable skills and knowledge.
But calls are coming also from the profession, which is itselfbecoming increasingly transnational and international. The Bentley Report, delivered in 2012, concluded that âinternationalization is having a significant impact on legal practice in Australia, and that legal education must change to reflect this realityâ.5 This reflects a consistent theme in conferences, judicial speeches and media reports over many years.6
Australian legal educators have not been complacent. The recent Threshold Learning Outcomes for Law7 (TLOs) for example require graduates of the Bachelor of Laws to have a âcoherent body of knowledge that includes ... fundamental areas of legal knowledge ... including international and comparative contextsâ.8 The Bentley Report offers a framework for developing an internationalized curriculum,9 and there is of course a healthy literature on this topic within legal education.
We have other imperatives also in the law curriculum. The TLOs incorporate the so-called âPriestley 11â core Australian law subjects10 within the knowledge to be acquired by graduates. These are required for accreditation with the admitting bodies in Australia. Also in the Australian context is the oversight of the new regulatory body of the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency, and the Australian Qualifications Framework. While these do not cover the content of the law degree per se, they do affect the level of student learning and require assurance of student learning reflecting discipline standards.
In terms of law specifically, there are choices to be made not just about internationalization of curriculum, but how much theory and jurisprudence is included and what will be the approach to law in context and critical perspectives.11 The TLOs and the regulatory framework will require evidence of a variety of skills in addition to legal knowledge including collaboration and self-management.12 Increasingly also our curricula incorporate not just the traditional problem-solving, research and mooting skills, but professional skills such as Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), client interviewing, professional writing and advocacy. These support an increasing move to âwork integrated learningâ within the law school, scaffolded throughout the law degree.13 There is a strong evidence-based argument also for dealing with student psychological wellness through a variety of curricular innovations that challenge our view of the traditional law degree.14
There are further pressures also on what we teach and how we teach it. In higher education generally there has been a movement over recent years towards sustainability education and although this has not been highly visible in the Australian legal education context,15 there is a growing literature both within substantive law and legal education.16 Of greater visibility, but perhaps not yet with the desired impact, is the embedding of Indigenous perspectives into education. Again, there are a great many examples of scholarship and curriculum innovation in this area.17
For colleagues who are discipline experts in the traditional mould, the sheer scope of these developments in the focus of and approach to teaching in our discipline may seem overwhelming.18 This is particularly the case if each curriculum innovation is seen as adding more content to an already crowded curriculum. Without careful planning, internationalization could seem to be yet another competing novelty in a long list.
In addition, the context of legal practice within Australia provides another priority for law schools. For all the calls from the profession for graduates conversant in international laws and contexts, local communities in Australia are crying out for competent lawyers to serve local needs. The Law Council of Australia in a 2009 survey ascertained that there was a serious shortage of lawyers in rural, regional and remote communities.19 Firms in these areas have difficulty attracting and retaining staff and this is negatively affecting the ability of people in these areas to access justice.
This certainly reflects the experience in the catchment of the JCU Law Schoolâs campuses in Cairns and Townsville. These two small cities serve a wide region, including small towns and hamlets, as well as some of the remotest areas of the state. The Law School inevitably supports the local profession and the local community by providing graduates ready to qualify as lawyers. The Law School works closely with the profession to take into account contemporary needs of legal practice and to provide both the profession and our students with networking opportunities.
The question in the JCU context has therefore become: how might we properly integrate these apparently competing ideas - localization and internationalization?20 Are they reconcilable? I believe that they are and that in fact, they are two sides of the same coin. As the Panguna Mine story illustrates, one personâs international is, after all, another personâs local. Global economic dealings occur in a context, and they involve people and places. And this is the key to an integrated curriculum.