Journal article
Defining National Security: Still a Non-Justiciable Problem?
Public law review, Vol.36(1), pp.58-75
10/04/2025
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Abstract
In the last 20 years, Australia has passed national security legislation on an unprecedented scale. Since the terror attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001, Australia has passed significant amounts of legislation criminalising and regulating offences of espionage, sabotage, terrorism, foreign interference, spying and bribery of Commonwealth officials. Despite the many amendments to Australia's statute books, there appear a lack of academic scrutiny as to exactly what national security "is". This article intends to trace the evolution of non-justiciability of national security over time and to demonstrate that, even despite a substantial increase in national security legislation since 11 September 2001, Australian courts have begun to unpick the historically broad cloak of non-justiciability of those matters. By demonstrating that national security is no longer entirely non-justiciable, and identifying how the contours which seemingly still forms its core have changed over time, this article contributes to the broader discourse and discussion regarding the evolving nature of national security legislation.
Details
- Title
- Defining National Security: Still a Non-Justiciable Problem?
- Creators
- Brendan Walker-Munro - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- Public law review, Vol.36(1), pp.58-75
- Publisher
- Thomson Reuters
- Identifiers
- 991013271210702368
- Copyright
- © 2025 Thomson Reuters.
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Business, Law and Arts
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article