Sir Owen Woodhouse Memorial Lecture 2023

Woodhouse Heresies. The radical principles behind the 1967 Woodhouse Report were eclipsed by shifting political styles—and gradually abandoned as heretical. We can now turn to Sir Owen’s own notion, that “the apparent heresies of one generation become the orthodoxies of the next,” to explore how core Woodhouse Heresies might themselves perform this transition: providing fresh support for a generation grappling with headline challenges of climate change and pandemic control.

Richard Gaskins is Professor Emeritus at Brandeis University (Boston, US), where he directed the Program in Legal Studies. A frequent visitor at Vic (on some ten occasions from 1991, and with support from US and NZ Fulbright Commissions), he began comparative work on the ACC scheme in 1975 with a group of US and New Zealand researchers. That group met with Sir Owen Woodhouse in Philadelphia in 1979. Richard’s broader research fields include comparative law, legal argumentation, and international criminal law. He holds post-graduate degrees in law and philosophy from Yale University.