Melbourne Law School - Research Publications

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    Helping and not Harming Animals with AI
    Coghlan, S ; Parker, C (Springer, 2024-03-01)
    Ethical discussions about Artificial Intelligence (AI) often overlook its potentially large impact on nonhuman animals. In a recent commentary on our paper about AI’s possible harms, Leonie Bossert argues for a focus not just on the possible negative impacts but also the possible beneficial outcomes of AI for animals. We welcome this call to increase awareness of AI that helps animals: developing and using AI to improve animal wellbeing and promote positive dimensions in animal lives should be a vital ethical goal. Nonetheless, we argue that there is some value in focusing on technology-based harms in the context of AI ethics and policy discourses. A harms framework for AI can inform some of our strongest duties to animals and inform regulation and risk assessment impacts designed to prevent serious harms to humans, the environment, and animals.
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    The Environmental Social Governance of Animal Welfare: A Review of Current Practice in Responsible Investment in Australia
    Parker, C ; Cornish, A ; Boehm, L (Thomson Reuters (Professional), 2022)
    “Animal cruelty” is the single top issue Australians want to avoid in their investments. As such, animal welfare is an environmental social governance issue that poses significant investment risk due to its capacity to impact on the legal, social and ethical licenses required to operate a business. This article reports the findings of an empirical study, which found that, of 35 asset managers and superannuation funds benchmarked as best practice in responsible investment, only 13 reported considering animal welfare in any way. Given the significance of animal agriculture to the Australian economy, the article suggests some strategies to raise awareness and skills in relation to animal welfare among the responsible investment community, such as the explicit inclusion of animal welfare in Principle 7 of the ASX's Corporate Governance Principles.
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    Reconstituting the Contemporary Corporation through Ecologically Responsive Regulation
    Parker, C ; Haines, F (Thomson Reuters (Professional), 2022)
    Corporate governance and regulation comprise two legal frameworks that operate together from, respectively, the inside out of the corporation and the outside in, to shape business conduct. This article critically analyses two different ways in which corporate governance and business regulation intersect. We argue that both fall short of addressing the ecological and social harms generated by business. The first intersection combines shareholder primacy with domain specific regulation. The second combines a stakeholder model of corporate governance with responsive regulation. Yet, there are signs that a third “ecologically responsive” intersection may emerge to shape business practice in light of the ecological crises we currently face. We see potential for this approach in recent proposals to reform corporate governance to encourage purposive, problem-focused corporations together with greater responsiveness and multiple business forms. To achieve this potential, though, requires a radical re-conceptualisation of regulation towards an “ecologically responsive” approach.
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    Addressing the accountability gap: gambling advertising and social media platform responsibilities
    Parker, C ; Albarran-Torres, C ; Briggs, C ; Burgess, J ; Carah, N ; Andrejevic, M ; Angus, D ; Obeid, A (TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2023-01-01)
    This commentary reports on gambling advertisements served to Australians on Facebook in 2021-2022 that we discovered through a research project that uses novel data donation infrastructure to improve the observability of platform-based advertising. Preliminary findings show that advertisements for online casinos appear on social media and are served to people tagged as located in Australia despite laws that prohibit both the operation and advertising of these gambling services in Australia, and in apparent contravention of company policies that require gambling advertisers to follow applicable law. We outline the harms of normalizing gambling on digital media and argue that the limited accountability of digital platforms for online advertising can contribute to these harms. We suggest ways in which the law and its enforcement and platform responsibility can be reformed to prevent harmful gambling advertising.
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    "Don't mince words": analysis of problematizations in Australian alternative protein regulatory debates
    Johnson, H ; Parker, C ; Evans, B (Springer, 2023)
    Alternative proteins, including plant-based and cell-based meat and dairy analogues, are discursively positioned as a new form of meat and dairy and as a solution to the myriad of issues associated with conventional animal agriculture. Animal agricultural industries across various nations have resisted this positioning in regulatory spaces by advocating for laws that restrict the use of meat and dairy terms on the labels of alternative proteins products. Underlying this contestation are differing understandings of, and vested interests in, desirable futures for animal agriculture. In Australia, this broader contestation led to a national-level inquiry by a Senate parliamentary committee entitled Definitions of meat and other animal products (the Inquiry). This paper reports findings from a study of the problematizations developed through the Inquiry using a framework for policy discourse analysis referred to as Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be’ methodology. It shows how the dominant discourse throughout the Inquiry moved away from the initial problematization of alternative proteins as a threat to animal agriculture. Instead, both industries were ultimately positioned as not in competition and only labelling laws were problematized with the solution being amendments to ensure ‘consumer clarity’. This outcome ignored a range of alternative problematizations related to the ethical, environmental, health, social and economic issues raised by animal agriculture and by alternative proteins. This lack of scrutiny benefits both industries, by closing off the policy discourse to consideration of a range of alternative interests, voices, and potential solutions, such as stricter health and welfare regulation.
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    Harm to Nonhuman Animals from AI: a Systematic Account and Framework
    Coghlan, S ; Parker, C (Springer, 2023-06-01)
    This paper provides a systematic account of how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies could harm nonhuman animals and explains why animal harms, often neglected in AI ethics, should be better recognised. After giving reasons for caring about animals and outlining the nature of animal harm, interests, and wellbeing, the paper develops a comprehensive ‘harms framework’ which draws on scientist David Fraser’s influential mapping of human activities that impact on sentient animals. The harms framework is fleshed out with examples inspired by both scholarly literature and media reports. This systematic account and framework should help inform ethical analyses of AI’s impact on animals and serve as a comprehensive and clear basis for the development and regulation of AI technologies to prevent and mitigate harm to nonhumans.
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    Ecological regulation for healthy and sustainable food systems: responding to the global rise of ultra-processed foods
    Northcott, T ; Lawrence, M ; Parker, C ; Baker, P (Springer, 2023)
    Many are calling for transformative food systems changes to promote population and planetary health. Yet there is a lack of research that considers whether current food policy frameworks and regulatory approaches are suited to tackle whole of food systems challenges. One such challenge is responding to the rise of ultra-processed foods (UPF) in human diets, and the related harms to population and planetary health. This paper presents a narrative review and synthesis of academic articles and international reports to critically examine whether current food policy frameworks and regulatory approaches are sufficiently equipped to drive the transformative food systems changes needed to halt the rise of UPFs, reduce consumption and minimise harm. We draw on systems science approaches to conceptualise the UPF problem as an emergent property of complex adaptive food systems shaped by capitalist values and logics. Our findings reveal that current food policy frameworks often adjust or reform isolated aspects of food systems (e.g., prices, labels, food composition), but under-emphasise the deeper paradigms, goals and structures that underlie the rise of UPFs as a systems phenomenon, and its socio-ecological implications. We propose that a ‘leverage points’ framework illuminates where to intervene in food systems to generate multi-level changes, while the theory of ecological regulation highlights how to respond to complex multi-factorial problems, like the rise of UPFs, in diverse ways that respect planetary boundaries. More research is needed to better understand the transformative potential of ecological regulation to advance food systems transformation and attenuate whole of food systems challenges.
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    Lawyers, Confidentiality and Whistleblowing: Lessons from the McCabe Tobacco Litigation
    Parker, C ; Le Mire, S ; Mackay, A (Melbourne University, Law Review Association, 2017)
    In 2006, Christopher Dale leaked information about Clayton Utz’s internal investigation into the events surrounding the destruction of documents that would have been relevant and damaging to their client, British American Tobacco, in the 2002 McCabe litigation. This article uses this case study to examine whether lawyers can and should act as whistleblowers against colleagues and clients who abuse the administration of justice. We argue that although lawyers must have strong obligations of confidentiality to clients and others, their role as gatekeepers of justice also demands that they be allowed to blow the whistle when they have information about clients or other lawyers using legal services to subvert the administration of justice, and be protected when they do so. The article evaluates the circumstances in which such whistleblowing is appropriate and makes suggestions about how the law should be reformed by reference to three touchstones: the nature of the relationship between the lawyer and the wrongdoer; the nature of the wrongdoing itself; and, the process used to disclose the wrongdoing.
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    Who has a beef with reducing red and processed meat consumption? A media framing analysis
    Sievert, K ; Lawrence, M ; Parker, C ; Russell, CA ; Baker, P (CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2022-03)
    OBJECTIVE: Diets high in red and processed meat (RPM) contribute substantially to environmental degradation, greenhouse gas emissions and the global burden of chronic disease. High-profile reports have called for significant global RPM reduction, especially in high-income settings. Despite this, policy attention and political priority for the issue are low. DESIGN: The study used a theoretically guided framing analysis to identify frames used by various interest groups in relation to reducing RPM in online news media articles published in the months around the release of four high-profile reports by authoritative organisations that included a focus on the impacts of high RPM production and/or consumption. SETTING: Four major RPM producing and consuming countries - USA, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. PARTICIPANTS: None. RESULTS: Hundred and fifty news media articles were included. Articles reported the views of academics, policymakers, industry representatives and the article authors themselves. RPM reduction was remarkably polarising. Industry frequently framed RPM reduction as part of a 'Vegan Agenda' or as advocated by an elite minority. Reducing RPM was also depicted as an infringement on personal choice and traditional values. Many interest groups attempted to discredit the reports by citing a lack of consensus on the evidence, or that only certain forms of farming and processing were harmful. Academics and nutrition experts were more likely to be cited in articles that were aligned with the findings of the reports. CONCLUSIONS: The polarisation of RPM reduction has led to a binary conflict between pro- and anti-meat reduction actors. This division may diminish the extent to which political leaders will prioritise this in policy agendas. Using nuanced and context-dependent messaging could ensure the narratives around meat are less conflicting and more effective in addressing health and environmental harms associated with RPM.
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    What's really at 'steak'? Understanding the global politics of red and processed meat reduction: A framing analysis of stakeholder interviews
    Sievert, K ; Lawrence, M ; Parker, C ; Baker, P (ELSEVIER SCI LTD, 2022-11)
    Multiple reports from international organisations and expert groups call for reductions in production and consumption of red and processed meat (RPM) to attenuate associated health and environmental harms. Policymakers have given limited attention to the issue and public discourse on the topic is contentious. The framing of RPM as a policy issue by influential actors may be contributing to inertia and confusion. We investigate the political challenge of RPM reduction by analyzing how relevant actors interpret and portray the issue. Thirty-two participants from academia, civil society, intergovernmental organisations, and industry were interviewed. We find that food systems stakeholders do see value in continued RPM production and consumption in the food system, but that the current status-quo is untenable. RPM reduction was perceived as a polarising concept. Participants cited a lack of nuance in public discourse, with framings on harms and benefits of RPM being over-simplified and lacking context. Some participants noted that intensive RPM production and high consumption levels reflected corporatized/globalised supply chains, and power relations were the most critical factor to address the harms of RPM. Participants also viewed the preference for technology-driven responses (i.e., novel proteins) as reinforcing corporate power in the food system. This study shows that despite polarised public discourse, more convergence on the issue across food systems stakeholders exists. Furthermore, powerful actors such as the meat and 'novel protein' industries are perceived to be a driving influence in maintaining the market-driven status-quo and are a likely obstacle in achieving healthy and sustainable consumption of RPM.