Southampton Professor Delivers Richard Cooper Memorial Lecture in Brisbane, Australia
The Richard Cooper Memorial Lecture was this year delivered by Professor Rob Merkin on 13th October in the Brisbane Federal Court. The audience consisted of senior judiciary, practitioners and academics. The lecture was broadcast simultaneously to other Federal Courts throughout Australia. Justice Cooper was a distinguished maritime judge who passed away suddenly in 2005, and the Memorial Lecture series was established in the same year.
In the lecture Professor Merkin argues that it is time for Australia to abandon its twin track approach to insurance law, which presently consists of separate marine and non-marine codes, and to bring the old marine insurance provision dating back to 1909 within the much more recent code adopted in 1984.