Journal of law and medicine
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Australian paramedics have always been regulated as an occupation despite a significant regulatory evolution occurring in their discipline. Paramedics have progressed from stretcher-bearers, ambulance drivers, ambulance officers and finally to paramedics. ⋯ Due to recent legislative amendments, paramedics will become a registered health profession in 2018. This article details the regulatory evolution of paramedic practice in Australia and how paramedicine has evolved beyond the current employer-based regulation to professional health practitioner regulation warranting a statutory framework of governance.
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Australia's intermittent attempts to legalise euthanasia are typically fraught with brief, polarised, and often sensationalised, public debate. Yet beyond the sensitive arguments in favour and in opposition of reform, the practical antecedents of change that may determine Australia's genuine aptitude to enact reforms have been largely neglected. Phronetic legal inquiry thus offers insights into the euthanasia law reform experience, using Australian and international case comparisons to examine covert power dynamics, cultural discourses, and social and institutional structures that affect the practices of the legislature. ⋯ Furthermore, these contrasting medical cultures represent issues in the broader policymaking context, as Australia's health policy remains unduly subject to the pressure of unrepresentative yet influential conservative interest groups, most prominently including the Australian Medical Association. This pressure serves to suppress public opinion on the issue of euthanasia in a parliamentary climate that remains stifled by bipartisan alliances and political inertia. It is therefore argued that Australia's prospects for successful voluntary euthanasia law reform rest on the dual pillars of developing a more patient-centred medical culture and challenging the prevailing paternalistic approach to health policymaking in Australia's currently unrepresentative political landscape.
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The United Nations' Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) (CBD) has become the focal point for the regulation of traditional knowledge (TK) held by indigenous and local communities (ILCs). The legally binding CBD is bolstered by a supplementary, non-binding agreement, The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (2010) (Nagoya Protocol). Both instruments create the conditions for the access and benefit-sharing (ABS) of genetic resources, and for TK associated with those resources. ⋯ This article provides a textual analysis of all provisions of the CBD and Nagoya Protocol that relate to TK and the interests of ILCs. The analysis clarifies the differences in scope between the two instruments and will provide some insights as to how to interpret key terms, particularly indigenous and local communities, traditional knowledge and traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources. This is critical to understanding the obligations that apply to accessing virus samples that are regulated as genetic resources under the CBD.