Professor Murray Raff
Position
Professor
Qualifications
- B Juris
- LLB(Hons)
- PhD
- Barrister & Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria
Professional Memberships
- Treasurer, Council of Australian Law Deans
- Senior Fellow, University of Melbourne
Past Professional Experience
Before taking up his Chair in the Canberra Law School in June 2006, Professor Raff had been Head of the new Law School at Victoria University from 2003. He helped to establish that Law School from 2001, before which he had worked in the Law School at University of Melbourne for eight years. There he initiated the first undergraduate course in Environmental Law taught in that Faculty. He also worked actively to establish that Universitys Environmental Management System (ISO 14000 accredited) and its University-wide multi-disciplinary graduate sustainability studies program.
Professor Raff was a founding member of the Environment Defenders Office, a community legal centre specialising in Environmental and Planning Law cases. He was active on the Board of that organisation from 1992 to 2006. Particularly, he has frequently advised community groups on a pro bono basis about the law of Environmental Impact Assessment, and participated in the EDO's seminar programs for governmental agencies, community groups and NGOs, and the legal profession. He was unanimously elected to chair that organisation in 2000 and continued in that position until 2006 when he retired to take up his Chair in the Canberra Law School.
Teaching
Dr Raff's main fields of teaching include Environmental & Planning Law, Administrative Law, Property Law and Comparative Law Method
Research & Publications
Professor Raff has worked in the fields of Property Law and Environmental & Planning Law for many years. His 1989 article on Law and the Greenhouse Effect was one of the first legal papers published anywhere on this topic.
Among Professor Raff's many publications are articles on Environmental Impact Assessment, the History of Planning Law, the environmental dimensions of the concept of property, and National Competition Policy review of the Environment Protection Act 1970 (Vic),[as well as his regular contribution of a chapter on Environmental Law to the Fitzroy Legal Service Law Handbook.
Another recent publication is a chapter on Australian Planning Law and Compulsory Acquisition in an Asia-Pacific region comparative study.This led to involvement in the production of a comparative supplemental chapter Eminent Domain in Asia and Australia in the famous US text Nichols on Eminent Domainand invitation to present the report for Australia Report Property and the Constitution in Australia at the International Property Law Conference held at the University of Reading, United Kingdom in March 2004.
Professor Raff has also written on the history of the Common Law system and discussed the desirability of codifying Australian civil law. His conference paper Environmental Law Inaction Throws into Strong Contrast Failings in Common Law Method, presented in July 2001 at the international Law and Society Conference held at Budapest, Hungary, was on this theme.
In the course of his Ph D work, Professor Raff was a guest at the Max-Planck-Institut f?r Ausl?ndisches und Internationales Privatrecht in Hamburg in 1995 and 1998. His doctoral thesis, which passed in the highest category and was greatly complimented by the German and Australian examiners, explored from a comparative legal perspective the German origins of the Australian Torrens land title registration system, clarifying the correct concept of registered land title and identifying in it a principle of responsible proprietorship.
Professor Raff has expanded the relevance of this work to reach the major land title systems of the world and to explain relevant connections of Natural Law theory. This work has recently been published as a book by Kluwer Law International under the title Private Property and Environmental Responsibility - A Comparative Study of German Real Property Law.The further research necessary for preparation of this expanded manuscript was undertaken at the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg in 2002.
In 2002 Professor Raff presented a conference paper related to this work, focussing on the historical connection of environmental and property law jurisprudence to theology, at the International Islamic University Malaysia. He presented a yet more highly developed version entitled Toward an Ecologically Sustainable Property Concept at the International Property Law Conference held at the University of Reading, United Kingdom in March 2004. This paper provides an overview of his work in this area and has now been published in Volume III of the prestigious series published by Professor E Cooke (ed), Modern Studies in Property Law.
The German connection in Professor Raffs work led to engagement to work with the German Governments development assistance agency, GTZ, in its assistance to the Peoples Republic of China in the development of her Administrative Law system.
Professor Raff worked at the Law Reform Commission of Victoria on the Land Law reference, which produced a range of Discussion Papers and Reports on reform of Victoria's Torrens system in preparation for technical innovations, such as an integrated electronic database of information about land and the computer register, which are just now being realised in practice. Professor Raff was involved in development of the Law Reform Commissions contributions to the Planning and Environment Act 1987 (Vic), the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (Vic), the Water Act 1989 (Vic) and the States mining legislation.