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Harry Hobbs
Associate Professor at UTSAssociate Professor Harry Hobbs is an experienced constitutional and human rights lawyer working at the forefront of academic research and legal and political debate about Indigenous-State treaty making. Drawing on both doctrinal and critical theories of constitutional, international and human rights law, he has published 40 academic papers on subjects ranging from native title and Australia’s first treaty, the Noongar settlement, to hybrid international criminal tribunals.
He has particular expertise and interest in the treaty debate in Australia. With UNSW’s Professor George Williams, he co-authored Treaty (Federation Press, 2nd edition, 2020), the leading book on this topic, in which the two academics take a fresh look at modern treaty-making between Indigenous peoples and governments in Australia. He is also the author of Indigenous Aspirations and Structural Reform in Australia (Hart Publishing, 2021) and co-editor of Treaty-Making Two Hundred and Fifty Years Later (Federation Press, 2021, with Alison Whittaker and Lindon Coombes). He is active in public developments in constitutional recognition, a First Nations Voice and treaty-making, and in the international community of scholars and activists concerned with protecting the rights of Indigenous people.
In examining notions of sovereignty, he has examined the phenomenon of micronations and the ways in which those aspiring to statehood assert claims to sovereignty. He has authored two books on this topic: Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty (Cambridge University Press, 2022, with George Williams) provides a world-first, comprehensive legal and political account of micronations and micronationalism, while How To Rule Your Own Country (NewSouth, 2022, with George Williams) takes an in depth look at the people and stories behind the most prominent micronations.
Ed Wensing
Special Adviser at SGS Economics and PlanningDr Ed Wensing, PhD, BA (Hons), (Life Fellow) FPIA, FHEA is currently an Associate and Special Adviser at SGS Economics and Planning, a Research Fellow at the City Futures Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at the Australian National University.
Ed Wensing is an experienced planner, policy analyst and academic. He has worked in government, the private sector, non-government organisations and professional associations and has engaged in teaching and research in several universities around Australia. For over 27 years, Ed has had the privilege of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities across Australia on a wide range of land and water related matters.
He has extensive knowledge and understanding of the statutes relating to land administration, land use and environmental planning, Aboriginal land rights, native title rights and interests, environmental protection, natural resource management, cultural heritage protection and local government in every jurisdiction around Australia.
Ed has a long track record of academic publications in a wide range of fields. His current research interests are in the intercultural contact zone between Indigenous peoples’ rights and interests (however defined by them) and the Crown’s land administration and land and environmental planning and management systems.