Tania Penovic - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Tania Penovic

Social Science Research Network, Dec 1, 2013

Women's Studies International Forum, 2021

Abstract Access to abortion in Australian has been the subject of significant legal reforms to th... more Abstract Access to abortion in Australian has been the subject of significant legal reforms to the point that in some jurisdictions, most legal barriers to access have been dismantled. Nevertheless, research reveals that many Australian women will not be in a position to fully realise their reproductive rights until the non-legal barriers to access are adequately addressed. Between March 2017 and November 2020, the authors conducted qualitative research into the barriers faced by Australian women when accessing, or attempting to access, abortion services. Three of the primary non-legal barriers to access raised repeatedly in our research are financial barriers to access, geographic barriers to access; and deficiencies in practitioner attitudes, education and training. Part I of this article focuses on these barriers to abortion access while Part II considers the significant new challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic for women’s access to reproductive health services. The paper concludes that the pandemic and the measures introduced in response have amplified pre-existing barriers and generated a disproportionate and intersectional impact on the most marginalised and disempowered women in society.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2020

Together with Canada, the United States and New Zealand, Australia is considered to be one of the... more Together with Canada, the United States and New Zealand, Australia is considered to be one of the world’s major ‘immigration nations’. Immigration is a defining feature of Australia’s economic and social life. Almost half of Australia’s population is now comprised of first or second-generation migrants. Most people who have left their country of origin and settled in Australia have migrated voluntarily. A smaller number have settled in Australia as refugees after fleeing their country of origin and seeking asylum from persecution. The means by which immigrants have travelled to Australia may strike the reader as far less significant than the reasons why they have come. Means of travel have changed over time in accordance with economic circumstances and technological advancements. Wealthier migrants began to travel to Australia by air as early as the 1930s, and the 1960s saw a transition from mass sea travel to mass air travel. By the 1970s, most people coming to Australia were travelling by air. These people included voluntary migrants, refugees resettled from overseas and those who travelled to Australia with a visa and subsequently claimed protection as refugees. One group of migrants has continued to travel by sea. This group is comprised of asylum seekers for whom obtaining a visa and coming to Australia by plane is impracticable. Their trajectory is complex and precarious, and the likelihood that they are entitled to protection as refugees is high. For members of this group, it is their mode of arrival rather than the reasons why they have come that has defined their treatment under the law. This chapter focuses on the legal and policy framework applied to this group of asylum seekers, namely irregular maritime arrivals. The immigration detention regime has provided a policy foundation which has been built on incrementally by measures designed to deter irregular maritime arrivals from entering Australia and to distance and exclude them from the body politic and protections afforded under Australian law. These measures have increasingly sought to bar irregular maritime arrivals from entering Australia and culminated in their erasure from Australia’s Humanitarian Program.

Australian Journal of Human Rights, 2007

Almost six years on from the introduction of the Pacific Solution, the commitment of Australia's ... more Almost six years on from the introduction of the Pacific Solution, the commitment of Australia's federal government to the regime of offshore processing of asylum seekers appears undiminished. The offshore processing regime has damaged Australia's international standing and has cost its taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. But its highest cost has been in human terms. This article examines the evolution of Australia's offshore processing regime with reference to its objectives, its consequences and its ramifications for Australia's performance of its human rights obligations under international law.

University of New South Wales Law Journal, 2020

The past two decades have seen significant reforms in abortion law throughout Australia. From the... more The past two decades have seen significant reforms in abortion law throughout Australia. From the perspective of advancing women’s reproductive rights, the most significant abortion law reforms have been the decriminalisation of abortion, removal of impediments to accessing medical abortion, the imposition of an ‘obligation to refer’ on medical practitioners with a conscientious objection to abortion, and the introduction of safe access zones around abortion clinics. This article focuses on the introduction of safe access zones as a key legal reform that has been implemented across Australia to support and promote women’s reproductive rights, drawing on empirical research conducted by the first and second authors and discussing this research in the context of the recent High Court decision confirming the constitutionality of safe access zones.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021

This article examines the High Court of Australia’s treatment of the concept of dignity as both a... more This article examines the High Court of Australia’s treatment of the concept of dignity as both a value animating the implied freedom of political communication and as a legitimate reason to limit the exercise of that freedom. It does so through the lens of Clubb v Edwards, Preston v Avery, where the Court found that laws establishing safe access zones around abortion clinics were compatible with the implied freedom. The use of dignity as a prism through which to view the interests at stake in both abortion and speech cases is a familiar feature of developments abroad, and the Court has laid the foundations for recognition of dignity as one of the axiological bases of the implied freedom in a manner that generally emphasises individual autonomy over other conceptions of dignity that might be described as operating as a constraint on behaviour to protect other interests. Yet, while the Court has used dignity as the common measure with which to commensurate competing claims, it has yet to convincingly address concerns regarding incommensurability that attend the balancing stage of proportionality review, not to mention the potential objection that its reliance on dignity is not properly grounded in the text and structure of the Constitution. In light of these issues, the role of dignity ought to be tethered to its central role in facilitating political participation so as to more clearly link the concept to the text and structure of the Constitution, and to identify what is at stake when women’s ability to access reproductive health care is impaired or denied.

Australian Journal of Human Rights, 2005

Wotherspoon and Phillip Tagini for their comments and ideas on the development of this paper. The... more Wotherspoon and Phillip Tagini for their comments and ideas on the development of this paper. The paper was submitted to the University of Oxford in partial fulfilment of the Master of Studies degree in International Human Rights Law. 'resource curse'6 and in a recent UN paper titled 'Indigenous peoples and Globalization', which links such projects with poor economic growth, uneven distribution of economic benefits and perpetuation of structural inequality (Commission on Human Rights 2003: para 23). Human rights, which aspire to secure a common core of human dignity, may be seen as part of globalisation. While economic processes may be described as 'globalisation from above', they have been met by' globalisation from below' in the form of national and supra-national groups seeking to place them within a human rights framework. The forces of globalisation from above and below have qualified sovereignty. But they do not portend the demise of the state (Tomuschat 1993: 6). Rather, they require a more complex role for states in mediating processes associated with globalisation (including extraterritorial corporate investment) to ensure they are not characterised as 'values in themselves' capable of trumping norms perceived as inconsistent with their effective operation (Alston 1997: 435--49).

Alternative Law Journal, 2011

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

health-arts-design/staffprofiles/view.php?who=acdaly&unit=isr I have ten years of experience in a... more health-arts-design/staffprofiles/view.php?who=acdaly&unit=isr I have ten years of experience in academia, advocacy and policy-making concerning the law, ethics and technology. I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the Swinburne Institute for Social Research (Australia), primarily conducting research on the legal and social implications of 3D printing. I have submitted a PhD entitled 'Mind the Gap: Private Power, Online Information Flows and EU Law' to the Department of Law at the European University Institute (Italy), whose substance concerns the extent to which existing EU law and regulation address concentrations of private economic power which impede free information flows online, to the detriment of Internet users' autonomy. My specialties lie in the field of communications and media law and policy -particularly privacy, free expression, data protection, intellectual property, and competition and regulation. I have an MA in Jurisprudence from Balliol College, University of Oxford, an LLM in French and European Law from the Université de Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne and an LLM in Comparative, European and International Law from the EUI.

The practice of transferring asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia by boat to neighbouring... more The practice of transferring asylum seekers attempting to reach Australia by boat to neighbouring counties in the Asia Pacific has been a key feature of Australian asylum seekers policy for the past 13 years. My paper will examine the evolution of offshore processing of asylum seekers pursuant to bilateral arrangements with neighbouring countries. These countries are generally not well positioned to manage asylum seekers and determine their status in accordance with basic human rights standards. I will consider the impact of these bilateral arrangements, including the impact on the asylum seekers who have been subject to their operation and on Australia’s international relations.

After outlining the Pacific Strategy, the chapter considers the law and practice of offshore proc... more After outlining the Pacific Strategy, the chapter considers the law and practice of offshore processing after the Howard Government’s defeat in 2007; including the maintenance of the legislative architecture of the Pacific Strategy, processing in the excised offshore territory of Christmas Island, and the Gillard Government’s efforts to reinstate offshore processing in East Timor and Malaysia, the cooperative transfer agreement concluded between Australia and Malaysia in July 2011 and the High Court judgment which invalidated the Ministerial declaration pursuant to which transfer to Malaysia was to be effected. The Chapter examines the government’s subsequent efforts to re-instigate offshore processing, including amendments to the Migration Act which immediately followed the delivery of a report by an Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers (Expert Panel) and the re-establishment of offshore processing facilities in Nauru and PNG.

This article explores the potential for the tort of false imprisonment to address concerns about ... more This article explores the potential for the tort of false imprisonment to address concerns about human rights abuses arising from wrongful immigration detention. The philosophical compatibility of tort law and human rights and the extent to which human rights arguments may inform Australia's common law are explored with reference to false imprisonment litigation in Australia.