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The Childhood, Law & Policy Network (CLPN)

Professor Elizabeth Handsley

Elizabeth

Professor of Law, President of the Australian Council on Children and the Media, Australia

Email: handsley.elizabeth@gmail.com

Profile

Elizabeth Handsley has over 30 years' experience as a legal academic in Australia, having taught at universities in New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia. For much of that time she has also been a researcher and advocate on children's rights as media users, and she has been President of Children and Media Australia since 2010. Her other interests include constitutional law (especially judicial power) and media law generally. She is fluent in French, and has been a visitor at universities in France, Quebec and Belgium.

Research

Publications

Edited collections

  • Elizabeth Handsley, Michael Rich and Colin MacDougall (eds), Children’s Wellbeing in the Media Age: Multidisciplinary Conversations from the Harvard-Australia Symposium (Federation Press, 2015) ISBN 978-1-76002-028-6

Book chapters

  • John Tobin and Elizabeth Handsley, ‘Article 17’ in John Tobin and Philip Alston (eds), Commentary on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Oxford University Press, 2019) ISBN 9780198262657
  • Elizabeth Handsley, ‘Introduction’ in Elizabeth Handsley, Michael Rich and Colin MacDougall (eds), Children’s Wellbeing in the Media Age: Multidisciplinary Conversations from the Harvard-Australia Symposium (Federation Press, 2015) ISBN 978-1-76002-028-6, 1-11
  • Elizabeth Handsley, ‘(Media) Law’ in Elizabeth Handsley, Michael Rich and Colin MacDougall (eds), Children’s Wellbeing in the Media Age: Multidisciplinary Conversations from the Harvard-Australia Symposium (Federation Press, 2015) ISBN 978-1-76002-028-6, 124-42
  • Elizabeth Handsley, ‘There oughta be a law: The (potential) role of law and regulation in calming down and slowing down’ in Wayne Warburton and Danya Braunstein (eds), Growing Up Fast & Furious (Federation Press, 2012) ISBN 9781862878235, 175-96
  • Elizabeth Handsley, ‘What’s in it for children? – Dedicated channels and the effectiveness of regulation’ in Andrew Kenyon (ed), TV Futures (Melbourne University Press, 2007) ISBN 978-0-522-85440-4

 

Refereed articles

  • Elizabeth Handsley and Wayne Warburton, ‘“Material likely to harm or disturb them”: Testing the alignment between classification decisions and psychological research evidence’ (published online in Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 26/05/2021)
  • Elizabeth Handsley and Arlen Duke, ‘Protecting the child consumer from misleading advertising: A comparison of media regulation and consumer protection approaches’ (2019) 26 Competition & Consumer Law Journal 1-25
  • Elizabeth Handsley and Belinda Reeve, ‘Holding Food Companies Responsible for Unhealthy Food Marketing to Children: Can International Human Rights Instruments Provide a New Approach?’ (2018) 41(2) UNSW Law Journal 449-87
  • Emma Gorman and Elizabeth Handsley, ‘International Human Rights Law and Obesity Prevention’ (2017) Australian Journal of Human Rights doi: 10.1080/1323238X.2017.1403876
  • Jacqueline Lau, Elizabeth Handsley and Christopher Reynolds, ‘Obesity Prevention and the Australian Constitution’ (2017) 25 Journal of Law and Medicine 248-66
  • Jana Sisnowski, Elizabeth Handsley and Jackie M Street, ‘Regulatory approaches to obesity prevention: a systematic overview of current laws addressing diet-related risk factors in the European Union and the United States’ (2015) 119(6) Health Policy 720-31
  • Kaye Mehta, John Coveney, Paul Ward and Elizabeth Handsley, ‘Parents' and children's perceptions of the ethics of marketing energy-dense nutrient-poor foods on the Internet: implications for policy to restrict children’s exposure’ (2014) 7 Public Health Ethics 21-34
  • Elizabeth Handsley, Christopher Nehmy, Kaye Mehta & John Coveney, ‘A Children’s Rights Perspective on Food Advertising to Children’ (2014) 22 International Journal of Children’s Rights 93-134
  • Kaye Mehta, Clare Phillips, Paul Ward, John Coveney, Elizabeth Handsley & Patricia Carter ‘Marketing foods to children through product packaging: prolific, unhealthy and misleading’ (2012) 15 Public Health Nutrition 1763-70 doi:10.1017/S1368980012001231
  • Elizabeth Handsley and Clare Hughes, ‘Volunteer Codes No Real Protection for Kids’ (2011) 7 Viewpoint 32-37
    Elizabeth Handsley and Wayne Warburton, ‘The R18+ Games Debate: A Critical Analysis of the Arguments’ (2010) 4 Viewpoint 44-49
  • Elizabeth Handsley, John Coveney, Kaye Mehta and Christopher Nehmy, ‘Regulatory Axes on Food Advertising to Children’ (2009) 6:1 Australia and New Zealand Health Policy
  • Elizabeth Handsley, Christopher Nehmy, Kaye Mehta and John Coveney, ‘Media, public health and law: A lawyer’s primer on the food advertising debate’ (2007) 12 Media and Arts Law Review 87-106

 

OtherPublications

 

  • Elizabeth Handsley and Barbara Biggins, ‘The role of research in developing policy and practice for children’s digital engagement’ (2019) Australian Educational Leader 29-31
  • Mimi Tatlow-Golden, Emma Boyland, Jo Jewell, Monika Zalnieriute, Elizabeth Handsley and João Breda, ‘Tackling Food Marketing to Children in a Digital World: trans-disciplinary perspectives’ (WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2016)
  • Elizabeth Handsley, ‘Should parents expose children to news on terrorism?’ The Conversation 30 November 2015
  • Elizabeth Handsley, ‘Country Report: Australia’ in Hans Bredow Institute, Identification of Good Practice in Youth Media Protection: an International Comparison, 2013
  • Elizabeth Handsley, ‘Using science for video classification, instead of guesswork’ HappyChild 18 October 2013
  • Elizabeth Handsley, ‘R18+ Rating Added for Videogames … But Are Children Protected?’ The Conversation 25 September 2012
  • Elizabeth Handsley, ‘The Corporate Takeover of Childhood’ (2012) 1 Newsletter on Children, Youth and Media in the World

Expertise

Media regulation for children's interests eg advertising (especially food), film and game classification
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