News and updates

Last week, McCabe Centre Director Jonathan Liberman and Professors Mark Davison and Andrew Mitchell appeared before the Health Committee of the New Zealand Parliament, which is examining a Bill that would require tobacco products in New Zealand to be sold in plain packaging. They set out why they believe the Bill would not breach New Zealand’s obligations under WTO or international investment law. In this blog, they address some of the claims made by the tobacco industry in its submissions to the Committee. Read more >: Responding to the tobacco industry's claims that plain packaging breaches international trade and investment law

As a participant in the McCabe Centre Intensive Legal Training Programme during February and March, I learned about important and pressing issues related to tobacco control, alcohol control, obesity, treatment and support for cancer, access to medicines, global action on NCDs, and international trade and investment. Read more >: Eating the Elephant in the Room

What are the bases for developing and implementing laws for obesity prevention? Which levels of government are responsible? What is the role for public health evidence? And how can public health advocates respond to the efforts of opponents of legal approaches who simultaneously overplay gaps in evidence, the limits of legal authority, and technical barriers, with a view to delaying or stalling the use of law? Read more >: Ad bans, labelling and taxes: exploring the intersection of law and public health in global efforts to prevent obesity

Simon Lacey, a Jakarta-based international trade-law practitioner, writes in the Jakarta Globe that he advised Indonesia to challenge Australia's plain packaging legislation in the WTO because it would be a good opportunity to build Indonesia's WTO dispute settlement experience - particularly because the tobacco industry would be footing the bill. We comment on Lacey's perspective and on his judgment that Australia's plain packaging is ‘almost certainly ... an act of regulatory over-reach' and ‘a silly political calculation'. Read more >: WTO dispute settlement as a training exercise?

Nearly two years after the passage of Australia's plain packaging legislation, and ten months after it came fully into effect, the international legal challenges continue. Slowly. And the tobacco industry, which is directly pursuing one of the challenges and providing support to the others, is telling governments considering stronger tobacco control measures to wait until the challenges are resolved. Read more >: Waiting out the legal challenges to plain packaging - playing into the tobacco industry's hands?

I had the great privilege of being in Bangkok, Thailand, last week to talk with public health and legal colleagues about Thailand's defence of lawsuits brought against it by the multinational tobacco industry. Read more >: From Australia to Thailand - defending tobacco packaging laws against multinational tobacco industry lawsuits

Should human cancer disposing genes be considered patentable inventions? What exactly is an ‘invention'? What impact would this have on patient healthcare and cancer research? How does Australia's patent law system operate? These were some of the questions I had to consider when analysing the Federal Court of Australia's historic ruling on the practice of ‘gene patenting' in Cancer Voices Australia v Myriad Genetics Inc during my internship with the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, undertaken earlier this year in partnership with the Melbourne Law School. Read more >: Cancer Voices Australia v Myriad Genetics Inc: Reflections on a Patent Controversy

While many employers are supportive when an employee is affected by cancer, retaining, returning to, or finding new employment can be difficult for some people who have or have had cancer.  Read more >: Making the law work better for people affected by cancer: employment

Across Australia, as geographical isolation increases, cancer care is less accessible. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the further from a metropolitan centre a person with cancer lives, the more likely they are to die within five years of diagnosis. For some cancers, those who live remotely are up to 300% more likely to die within five years of diagnosis. In the second blog of our series, we outline some of the challenges for people who need to travel long distances for cancer treatment. Read more >: Making the law work better for people affected by cancer: support for travel for treatment

Under the cab rank rule, a barrister should not refuse a brief on the basis of the objectionableness of a potential client’s behaviour or character. The rule was the subject of a very interesting event we co-hosted last month, ‘Is it the end of the line for the cab rank rule?’, with Monash University’s Centre for Regulatory Studies on the occasion of the visit to Melbourne of UK Professor John Flood, who has recently published a paper, with Professor Morten Hviid, ‘The Cab Rank Rule: Its Meaning and Purpose in the New Legal Services Market’ Read more >: Flagging down a cab or booking a chauffeur-driven limousine? Are we lowering the Bar?

Whether we're consciously aware of it or not, the law influences how people make decisions about health care, treatment and support. This is no different for people affected by cancer. Read more >: Making the law work better for people affected by cancer: a McCabe Centre issues paper

Today, World Cancer Day, marks a year since the McCabe Centre commenced operation - as good a time as any for us to enter the blogosphere. We'll be blogging on a wide range of law-and-cancer issues over the months and years ahead, and running contributions from guest bloggers. So, please keep an eye on this page, and feel free to send us suggestions. Read more >: McCabe Centre: one year on