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QUT Law Review ISSN: Online-2201-7275
Volume 17, Issue 1, pp. i-iii DOI: 10.5204/gutlr.vl7il.731
GUEST EDITORIAL: PERSONAL INSOLVENCY
- A FRESH START
ROSALIND MASON, JASON KILBORN, STEPHANIE BEN-ISHAI,
JOSEPH SPOONER*
The international personal insolvency conference, A Fresh Look at Fresh Start: The Human
Dimension to Bankruptcy was hosted by Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane,
Australia in September 2016. The conference attracted delegates from a wide-range of
disciplines including academics, accountants, economists, financial counsellors, lawyers,
regulators, policy makers and non-profit organisations. They came from around the globe
bringing perspectives from North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
While the current focus in much insolvency scholarship or commentary is upon salvaging
economic value for large businesses facing financial collapse, the harsh reality is that many
more people experience financial stress as over-indebted consumers or 'owners' of
micro/small/medium sized enterprises. This conference provided a forum for scholars,
practitioners and policy-makers to discuss and present on the human experience of bankruptcy.
This Special Issue of the QUTLaw Review contains a select number of articles based on papers
prepared for the conference. The issue begins with an invited contribution by The Honourable
Justice Andrew Greenwood of the Federal Court of Australia and is based upon his Opening
Remarks to launch the conference. His article provides a fascinating insight, based upon
original research into the court archives, into the bankruptcy of a prominent Australian lawyer,
Sir Garfield Barwick. Early in his career at the bar, Barwick was made bankrupt as a result of
legal obligations entered into in order to assist a younger brother - just prior to the Great
Depression of the 1930s. Despite this, Barwick went on to become a leading figure in
Australian and international legal circles as a King's Counsel; Minister of the Crown, including
a term as the federal Attorney-General; a lengthy term as Chief Justice of the High Court of
Australia; a judge of the International Court of Justice; and an occasional member of the Privy
Council. Yet not many students of the law and his judgments would be aware that this
'archetypal self-made man, [who] was a fervent believer in free enterprise, which required
effective competition, and favoured small business' had experienced the impact of
bankruptcy on his professional and private life.
The second article, by Professor lain Ramsay of the University of Kent, explores themes of the
conference from a global perspective. Professor Ramsay is well-placed to delineate an
* Rosalind Mason, BA (University of Queensland), LLB (Hons) (University of Queensland), LLM (University
of Sydney), PhD (University of Queensland), Professor of Insolvency & Restructuring Law, Centre for
Commercial and Property Law Research Centre, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology; Jason
Kilborn, JD (magna cum laude) (University of Michigan), Van der Grinten Chair in International &
Comparative Insolvency Law, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, Professor of Law, John Marshall Law School
(Chicago); Stephanie Ben-Ishai, LLB (Osgoode Hall Law School), LLM (Harvard University), Professor of
Law, Osgoode Hall Law School; Joseph Spooner, PhD (University College London) Assistant Professor of
Law, Department of Law, London School of Economics.
1 George Winterton, 'Garfield Barwick' in Tony Blackshield, Michael Coper and George Williams (eds), The
0 Ford Companion to the High Court ofAustralia (Oxford University Press Australia, 2001) 58.
Ll=: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 10 Licence. As an open access journal,
articles are free to use with proper attribution in educational and other non-commercial settings.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/qutlj17&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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