Awareness of the incidence and impact of domestic violence has increased in recent decades, along with community and legal recognition of the interests of animals. However, streams of jurisprudence addressing these issues have only partially influenced one another. While in most Australian jurisdictions, animal cruelty can constitute domestic violence, abused companion animals have not been accorded the legal status of victims. This article proposes introducing laws that recognise such animals as sentient victims of domestic violence. This would enable courts to make orders protecting these animals, which would safeguard their welfare and ensure that people with whom they live who are also experiencing domestic violence can escape without worrying about the fate of their animals. Further, it would convey the seriousness of animal cruelty, and might increase support for and awareness of programs for re-homing abused animals, and training of people involved with animals to identify and report animal abuse.

To date, welfare protections have failed animals. In this context, many animal advocates and scholars have supported recognition of animal rights. Animal rights theory, however, remains underdeveloped. This article contributes to the development of animal rights theory and, in this respect, proposes the utilisation of sentience and intrinsic worth concepts as a pluralist foundation for prospective animal rights. Sentience and intrinsic worth as a conceptual underpinning for animal rights hold clear benefits in that (i) the concepts are already embedded in many legal systems, (ii) sentience would enable the development of animal rights to be built on the established interest theory of rights, and (iii) sentience directly links to the justification of rights as being primarily concerned with the prevention of pain and suffering.

The Introduction highlights the importance of higher education and the existence of educational disadvantage in society, contextualised within current political events and discussions. It describes the intrinsic importance of education in allowing people to learn about themselves and the world they live in. It details the significant instrumental importance of education in the likelihood people will obtain employment and command higher incomes. It also provides a brief outline of different historical perspectives in relation to how best to provide higher education teaching and learning. The importance of law and policy for higher education is discussed, and the purpose and limitations of the research identified.

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A human right to higher education was included in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which came into force in 1976. Yet the world has changed significantly since it was drafted. State legislation and policies have generally followed a neo-liberal trajectory, shifting the perception of higher education from being a public good to being a commodity. This model has been criticised, particularly because it generally reinforces social inequality. At the same time, attaining higher education has become more important than ever. Higher education is a prerequisite for many jobs, and those who have attained higher education enjoy improved life circumstances. This book seeks to determine whether there is still a place for the human right to higher education in the current international context. In seeking to answer this question, this book compares and contrasts two general theoretical models that are used to frame higher education policy: the market-based approach and the human rights-based approach. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to an understanding of the likely effectiveness of market-based versus human rights-based approaches to higher education provision in terms of teaching and learning. This understanding should enable the development of more considered, sophisticated and ultimately successful higher education policies. This book contends that a human rights-based approach to higher education policy is more likely to enable the achievement of higher education purposes than a market-based approach. In reaching this conclusion, the book identifies some strategic considerations of relevance for advocates of a human rights-based approach in this context.