ABSTRACT
In short, Anglo-Australian criminal law is composed of a plurality of state jurisdictions with differentiated relations to the common-law tradition. Nevertheless, there are clear similarities in terms and structure between the various state jurisdictions when it comes to the juridical attribution of liability for rape. At the same time, there is a federal criminal jurisdiction created by the Commonwealth Parliament. Contemporary forms of sexual violence have provided some of the subject-matter for its construction. Since the 1990s, sex trafficking, international sex tourism and debt bondage have been the subject of commonwealth legislation (R v Tang [2008] HCA 39). Similarly, the Commonwealth Government engaged in a project of codification of the entirety of the subject-matter (rape law included) of substantive criminal law in the 1990s (MCCOC 1999).
