The Holt Prize
The Holt Prize
Dr Vannessa Ho and Dr Julian R Murphy were announced as the joint winners of the 2024 Holt Prize on 1 November 2024.
The judges of this year’s Prize, The Hon James Allsop AC, Elizabeth Collins SC and Emeritus Professor Barbara McDonald, provided the following comments on the winning entries:
Facilitating Appropriate Forum Choices in Transnational Intellectual Property Litigation by Dr Vannessa Ho
“This manuscript concerns an interesting legal issue of great practical importance: how courts should deal with international disputes relating to intellectual, as opposed to physical, property. … The manuscript has a direct, clear and readable style and is well researched.”
Constitutionally Protective Statutory Interpretation by Dr Julian R Murphy
“This manuscript deals with an issue of perennial interest and relevance to the administration of justice and the governance of the country: how courts should approach their essential function of interpretating statutes and what concepts, canons, values, principles should direct them in this task. … The manuscript has a highly readable clear style and is well-structured. Explanation and justification of argument is based on comprehensive analysis of primary case law and secondary commentary.”
The Holt Prize is a biennial publishing award which recognises excellence in unpublished legal works of an academic or practical nature. The competition is open to first-time authors and the winner is awarded a $12,000 cash prize and a publishing contract with The Federation Press.
The prize is named after the late Christopher Holt, co-founder of The Federation Press, who gave many academics their first publishing opportunity. It was awarded for the first time in 2015.
List of previous winners and judges
2021: William Isdale, Compensation for Native Title
The judges for 2021 were The Hon Susan Crennan AC QC, Emeritus Professor Mark Aronson and Perry Herzfeld SC.
2019: Shipra Chordia, Proportionality in Australian Constitutional Law
The judges for 2019 were The Hon Professor William Gummow AC, The Hon Justice Alan Robertson and Ruth Higgins SC.
2017: Dylan Lino, Constitutional Recognition: First Peoples and the Australian Settler State
The judges for 2017 were The Hon Justice Virginia Bell AC, The Hon Keith Mason AC QC and Professor George Williams AO.
2015: The joint winners were Dr Giovanni Di Lieto, Migrant Labour Law: Unfolding Justice at Work in Free Markets and Dr Scott Stephenson, From Dialog to Disagreement in Comparative Rights Constitutionalism.
In 2015, The Federation Press also published the outstanding works of these finalists: Dr Yee-Fui Ng, Ministerial Advisers in Australia: The Modern Legal Context and Dr James Watson, The Origins of the Duty to Account.
The judges for 2015 were Justice Stephen Gageler, Neil Williams SC and Professor Andrew Lynch.