From: lucas.cloveralcolea@monash.edu
Sent: Tuesday 10 March 2026 02:50
To: 'obligations'
Subject: Call for papers - 'Private law and the courts in an age of
disruption: Bending, breaking or restating?' - 30 October 2026
Dear all,
Hope you
are well.
With the
moderator's permission I am (together with Brandon D Stewart) pleased to share
the call for papers for an upcoming one day private law conference at Monash
University on Friday 30 October entitled 'Private law and the courts in an age
of disruption: Bending, breaking or restating?'. We are honoured to announce
that the keynote speech will be delivered by The Honourable Justice Mark
Leeming, Judge of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. A selection
of papers, which will be peer reviewed, will be published in a special issue of
the Monash University Law Review. As I'm not sure whether attachments
can or can't be sent round the listserv I've pasted the full call below. If you
have any questions please don't hesitate to contact either Brandon or myself.
As an aside, the conference is an in-person one, and we would therefore
generally expect papers to be delivered in person.
Call for Papers
Private law and the courts in an age
of disruption: Bending, breaking or restating?
Monash University Faculty of Law
30 October 2026
We invite submissions for a one-day conference
on the theme of 'Private law and the courts in an age of disruption: Bending,
breaking, or restating?,' to be held on Friday, 30 October 2026 at the Monash
Convention Centre in Melbourne, Victoria. The keynote address will be given by
The Honourable Justice Mark Leeming, Judge of Appeal of the Supreme Court of
New South Wales. A selection of papers will be published in a special issue of
the Monash University Law Review.
Conference Theme
Private law has long presented itself as a
domain of incremental development, doctrinal coherence, and principled
reasoning. Yet contemporary pressures, including digital platforms and AI,
climate change, mass harm events, financial innovation, and shifting
conceptions of property, personhood, and responsibility, raise profound
questions about the stability and adaptability of private law's core concepts
and doctrines.
We welcome papers that use diverse
methodologies and/or approaches to address any topic related to the conference
theme, such as:
- challenges to private law's theoretical foundations;
- the role of courts, whether appellate or first instance, in
doctrinal development;
- disruptions in contract law (including digital contracting and
smart contracts);
- tort law's role in addressing harms caused by climate change and
emerging technologies;
- property law and digital or intangible assets;
- the application of equitable and fiduciary doctrine to complex and
novel settings;
- remedies and the recalibration or restatement of private law's
responses to wrongs; and
- comparative or transnational perspectives on doctrinal change
Submission Details
Please submit an abstract of up to 300 words to
Dr. Lucas Clover Alcolea (lucas.cloveralcolea@monash.edu)
and Dr. Brandon D. Stewart (brandon.stewart@monash.edu)
by 11:59pm AEST on 15 May 2026. Selected authors will be notified by 1
June 2026. Draft papers will be due by 15 October 2026 and will be
circulated to presenters and attendees to facilitate discussion. For those that
wish to be considered for publication in the special issue, which will be peer
reviewed, revised papers will be due in early 2027. We will provide further
details about that process in due course.
For further information, please contact the
conference co-convenors.
All the
best,
Lucas
Lucas Clover Alcolea
Lecturer
E: lucas.cloveralcolea@monash.edu
W: https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/lucas-clover-alcolea
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lcloveralcolea/