Bond Law alumnus Ross Buckley has received a 2011 Fulbright Senior Scholarship to undertake a three-month project in international law at the prestigious Duke University in the USA.
Dr Buckley completed his Master of Laws at Bond in 1994 and has since gone on to distinguish himself in the legal finance arena as an academic and researcher of note.
His Fulbright project will specifically focus on the fundamental financial reforms required to stave off a repeat of the Global Financial Crisis.
“The EU, UK and US are all in the process of enacting regulatory responses to the global financial crisis,” said Dr Buckley.
“These reforms will help, but all of the thinking behind these reforms is straight from the box that brought us the GFC.
“In my discussions with senior legal practitioners and regulators, most seem to accept that the complexity of modern securities means that the disclosure regime, upon which all security regulation is based, no longer works effectively,” he said.
Dr Buckley believes that the GFC requires systemic, not mere national, reforms. During his sojourn at Duke University, he will explore three potential areas of financial reform involving financial transaction taxes, bank levies and a sovereign bankruptcy regime.
“If we don’t pursue truly fundamental reforms in the next 3-5 years, another GFC is highly likely,” he said.
The Fulbright program is the largest educational scholarship of its kind, created by US Senator J. William Fulbright and the U.S. Government in 1946. Aimed at promoting mutual understanding through educational exchange, it operates between the US and 155 countries.
This is the second time Dr Buckley has been honoured by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission, having previously been awarded the Fulbright Coral Sea Scholarship. He was also the recipient of a Bond University Oxford Scholarship in 1998.