• myGriffith
    • Staff portal
    • Contact Us⌄
      • Future student enquiries 1800 677 728
      • Current student enquiries 1800 154 055
      • International enquiries +61 7 3735 6425
      • General enquiries 07 3735 7111
      • Online enquiries
      • Staff phonebook
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Book chapters
    • View Item
    • Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Book chapters
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

  • All of Griffith Research Online
    • Communities & Collections
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • This Collection
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • Statistics

  • Most Popular Items
  • Statistics by Country
  • Most Popular Authors
  • Support

  • Contact us
  • FAQs
  • Admin login

  • Login
  • Cooper v Stuart (1889) 14 App Cas 286

    Author(s)
    Synot, Edward
    de Silva-Wijeyeratne, Roshan
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Synot, Eddie J.
    Year published
    2021
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    This commentary explains the Privy Council’s opinion in Cooper v Stuart (1889) 14 App Cas 286, a case which continues to influence Australia’s constitutional framework. Despite being overturned by Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (‘Mabo [No 2]’), the case remains important because of the Privy Council’s justification for the application of English common law to the colony of New South Wales. The Privy Council’s explanation, which rested on NSW being a ‘tract of territory practically unoccupied, without settled inhabitants or settled law’, stood as the legal authority for Australian nationhood for over a century. This became known ...
    View more >
    This commentary explains the Privy Council’s opinion in Cooper v Stuart (1889) 14 App Cas 286, a case which continues to influence Australia’s constitutional framework. Despite being overturned by Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (‘Mabo [No 2]’), the case remains important because of the Privy Council’s justification for the application of English common law to the colony of New South Wales. The Privy Council’s explanation, which rested on NSW being a ‘tract of territory practically unoccupied, without settled inhabitants or settled law’, stood as the legal authority for Australian nationhood for over a century. This became known as the ‘enlarged notion of terra nullius’, a process that Brennan J explained in Mabo (No 2) as resulting in the ‘parcel by parcel’ dispossession of First Nations which ‘underwrote the development of the nation’. This explanation also helped prefigure the circumstances in which the Australian state, including the Australian Constitution, developed without legitimate consideration for the rights of First Nations. Rather than rewriting the judgment, the authors provide a commentary on the social history of the case and its impact on Australian constitutionalism. The commentary ends by discussing a Makarrata Commission as proposed by the Uluru Statement from the Heart. As part of an imagined Makarrata Commission, a Research Partnership is established to support future ‘truth-telling’.
    View less >
    Book Title
    Indigenous Legal Judgments: Bringing Indigenous Voices into Judicial Decision Making
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003174349-4
    Subject
    Historical studies
    Law and legal studies
    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the law
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/406997
    Collection
    • Book chapters

    Footer

    Disclaimer

    • Privacy policy
    • Copyright matters
    • CRICOS Provider - 00233E
    • TEQSA: PRV12076

    Tagline

    • Gold Coast
    • Logan
    • Brisbane - Queensland, Australia
    First Peoples of Australia
    • Aboriginal
    • Torres Strait Islander