Melbourne Law School - Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    International law in Australian public debate: 2003, 1965, 1916
    Chiam, Madelaine ( 2017)
    This thesis argues that the contemporary prominence of international law in public debate is not new. Drawing on law as language scholarship, and using analyses of the language of the debates over Australia’s participation in the 2003 Iraq War, the Vietnam War and the First World War, this thesis contends that international law has played a role in public debates about war across the 20th and now 21st centuries. The claims of legality that continue to be made in Australian debates about war are one of a number of forms of international legal language that speakers have used. This interest in ‘legality’ is therefore part of a longer practice of speaking international legal language in public debates about war.