The Honourable Chief Justice Robert French AC, CitWa, BSc LLB, Hon LLD
12th Chief Justice of Australia
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 September 2008
Nominated by	Kevin Rudd
Appointed by	Michael Jeffery
Preceded by	Murray Gleeson
Personal details
Born	(1947-03-19) 19 March 1947 (age 65)
Nationality	Australian

Robert Shenton French, AC (born 19 March 1947) is the twelfth and current Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy.

Although two other Western Australians, Sir Ronald Wilson and John Toohey, have been High Court judges, Robert French is the first Chief Justice from that state.^[1]

Education[link]

French was educated at St. Louis School (now John XXIII College), in Perth.^[2]

He subsequently attended the University of Western Australia in Perth, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Laws. He was President of the University's Liberal Club^[3] and served briefly as treasurer of the University of Western Australia Student Guild.

Career[link]

In 1969 at the age of 22, French contested the safe Labor Federal seat of Fremantle for the Liberal Party, which he lost to Kim Beazley, Sr..^[3] He is a close friend of Kim Beazley, Jr..^[1] French served as President of the Fremantle Branch of the Liberal Party, and hence on the State Executive of the Party.

In 1972, French was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in Western Australia.

The Hawke government appointed French to the Federal Court in 1986, at the age of 39.^[4]

During the Tampa Affair, he was part of the Full Court of the Federal Court that reversed the order of habeas corpus that had been earlier granted by a single judge.^[5]

On 30 July 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that French would succeed Murray Gleeson as Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. He was sworn in on 1 September 2008.^[6] He is the first Chief Justice of the High Court not to have taken silk at appointment.

French has served in numerous bodies, including as part-time Commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission (2006–08), Additional Judge of the Supreme Court of the ACT (2004–08), a Judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji (2003–08), President of the National Native Title Tribunal (1994–98), Council Member of the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration (1992-08), Chancellor of Edith Cowen University (1991–97), Member of the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia (1986), Chairman of the Town Planning Appeals Tribunal of Western Australia (1986), Associate Member of the Trade Practices Commission (1983–86), member of the Legal Aid Commission of Western Australia (1983–86), a member of the Barrister's Board of Western Australia (1979–86), and Chairman of the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia (1973–75).^[2]

Beliefs and positions[link]

On republicanism[link]

French said in a WA Law Society speech in May 2008:^[1]

"It is unacceptable in contemporary Australia that the legal head of the Australian state ... can never be chosen by the people or their representatives, cannot be other than a member of the Anglican Church, can never be other than British and can never be an indigenous person."

Indigenous issues[link]

Justice French is known for working for the rights of Indigenous Australians; in the early 1970s he helped found the WA Aboriginal Legal Service.^[1] He was also the first president of the National Native Title Tribunal.

At his swearing in ceremony as Chief Justice, French specifically referred to the long history of indigenous Australia, noting that:

Recognition of their presence is no mere platitude. The history of Australia's indigenous people dwarfs, in its temporal sweep, the history that gave rise to the Constitution under which this court was created.Our awareness and recognition of that history is becoming, if it has not already become, part of our national identity.^[7]

Awards[link]

• Honorary Doctor of Laws, Edith Cowan University, 1998
• Western Australian Citizen of the Year – Professions, 1998
• Centenary Medal, 2001, for service as President of the National Native Title Tribunal and as a Federal Court judge^[8]
• Companion of the Order of Australia, 2010, for eminent service to the law and to the judiciary, to legal education and administration in the areas of constitutional, competition and native title law, and to legal reform.^[9]

References[link]

Francis Gurry
4th Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 October 2008
Preceded by	Kamil Idris
Personal details
Born	(1951-05-17) 17 May 1951 (age 61) Australia
Nationality	Australian

Francis Gurry (born 17 May 1951^[1][2]) is an Australian national and the fourth and current Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). He is also Secretary-General of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). Gurry previously served as a Deputy Director General of WIPO from 2003 to 2008.^[3]

Career[link]

Gurry graduated in 1974 from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Laws and was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia in 1975.^[2] He worked in Melbourne as an articled clerk and solicitor at Arthur Robinson & Co. (now Allens Arthur Robinson)^[4] and earned a Master of Laws degree from the University of Melbourne in 1976^[5]. From 1976 to 1979, Gurry was a research student at the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, from which he was awarded a PhD^[5] in 1980 for his thesis dealing with breach of confidence.^[2]

Before joining WIPO, Gurry was a senior lecturer in law at the University of Melbourne and, for one year, a solicitor at Freehills, Melbourne.^[6] He was also a visiting professor of law at the University of Dijon, France.^[2]

Francis Gurry joined the World Intellectual Property Organization in 1985^[7] as a consultant and senior program officer in the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific. Between 1988 and 1999, he held positions in different sectors of WIPO, including in the Industrial Property Law Section, the Office of the Director General, and the Legal Counsel Office.^[2] As Assistant Director General (from 1999-2003) and Deputy Director General (from 2003-2008), he was in charge of a variety of areas including the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), patent law and policy, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (which he helped establish^[8]), traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions and genetic resources, and life sciences.^[2]

Francis Gurry was nominated as a candidate for the position of Director General of WIPO in February 2008^[9] and won the election on 13 May 2008.^[10] On 22 September 2008, he was appointed Director General by the WIPO General Assembly.^[11] His six-year term started on 1 October 2008 and will run through to the end of September 2014.^[12]

Published works[link]

Books[link]

• International Intellectual Property in an Integrated World Economy, Aspen Publishers, New York, 2007 (with Frederick Abbot and Thomas Cottier), ISBN 978-0-7355-3958-7
• International Intellectual Property System: Commentary and Materials, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, 1999 (with Frederick Abbot and Thomas Cottier), ISBN 90-411-9322-7
• Breach of Confidence, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1984, ISBN 0-19-825378-8 (re-printed 1990)
• Confidential Information, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981

Selected articles[link]

• “The Cambrian Explosion”, International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, vol. 38, no. 3 (2007), pp. 255-258
• “Globalization, Intellectual Property and Development”, Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 2005
• “The Growing Complexity of International Policy in Intellectual Property”, Science and Engineering Ethics, vol. 11, no. 1 (2005), pp. 13-20
• “The Dispute Resolution Services of the World Intellectual Property Organization”, Journal of International Economic Law, vol. 2, no. 2 (1999), pp. 385 – 398
• “The Evolution of Technology and Markets and the Management of Intellectual Property Rights”, in Frederick Abbott and David Gerber (eds.) Public Policy and Global Technology Integration, (Kluwer Law International, London, 1997), ISBN 90-411-0655-3
• “Arbitrage et propriété intellectuelle”, in Institut de recherche en propriété intellectuelle Arbitrage et propriété intellectuelle (Libraires Techniques, Paris, 1994), ISBN 2-7111-2383-9

References[link]

External links[link]

• Francis Gurry at WIPO
• Francis Gurry at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne
• Francis Gurry at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC)
• An Interview with WIPO Director General Francis Gurry (WIPO Magazine 5/2010)
• An Exclusive Interview with Francis Gurry, WIPO Director General (IPWatchdog, 4 May 2010)

v t e Directors General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Georg Bodenhausen (Netherlands) • Árpád Bogsch (United States) • Kamil Idris (Sudan) • Francis Gurry (Australia)

Robert Doisneau
in his studio in Montrouge, 1992
Born	Robert Doisneau (1912-04-14)14 April 1912 Gentilly, Val-de-Marne, Paris
Died	1 April 1994(1994-04-01) (aged 81) Montrouge, Paris
Cause of death	Acute pancreatitis
Resting place	Raizeux
Nationality	French
Education	École Estienne, 1929 graduate, diplomas in engraving and lithography
Occupation	Photographer, engraver
Known for	Street photography, Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (The Kiss by the Town Hall)
Influenced by	Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Kertész, Eugène Atget
Title	Chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honour
Spouse	Pierrette (née Chaumaison)
Children	Annette (b.1942) Francine (b.1947)

Robert Doisneau (French pronunciation: [ʁɔbɛʁ dwano]) (14 April 1912 – 1 April 1994)^[1] was a French photographer. In the 1930s he used a Leica on the streets of Paris. He and Henri Cartier-Bresson were pioneers of photojournalism.^[2] He is renowned for his 1950 image Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (Kiss by the Town Hall), a photograph of a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris. Robert Doisneau was appointed a Chevalier (Knight) of the Legion of Honour in 1984.^[1]

Photographic career[link]

Robert Doisneau was known for his modest, playful, and ironic images of amusing juxtapositions, mingling social classes, and eccentrics in contemporary Paris streets and cafes. Influenced by the work of André Kertész, Eugène Atget, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, in more than twenty books he presented a charming vision of human frailty and life as a series of quiet, incongruous moments.

Doisneau's work gives unusual prominence and dignity to children's street culture; returning again and again to the theme of children at play in the city, unfettered by parents. His work treats their play with seriousness and respect. In his honour, and owing to this, there are several Ecole Primaire (primary schools) named after him. An example is at Véretz (Indre-et-Loire).

Early life[link]

Doisneau's father, a plumber, died in active service in World War I when Robert was about four. His mother died when he was seven. He then was raised by an unloving aunt.^[1][3]

At thirteen he enrolled at the École Estienne, a craft school from which he was graduated in 1929 with diplomas in engraving and lithography. There he had his first contact with the arts, taking classes in figure drawing and still life.

When he was 16 he took up amateur photography, but was reportedly so shy that he started by photographing cobble-stones before progressing to children and then adults.^[3]

At the end of the 1920s Doisneau found work as a draughtsman (lettering artist) in the advertising industry at Atelier Ullmann (Ullmann Studio), a creative graphics studio that specialised in the pharmaceutical industry. Here he took an opportunity to change career by also acting as camera assistant in the studio and then becoming a staff photographer.^[3][4][5]

Photography in the 1930s[link]

In 1931 he left both the studio and advertising, taking a job as an assistant with the modernist photographer André Vigneau.^[3][4][5]

In 1932 he sold his first photographic story to Excelsior magazine.^[1]

In 1934 he began working as an industrial advertising photographer for the Renault car factory at Boulogne-Billancourt.^[3] Working at Renault increased Doisneau’s interest in working with photography and people. In 1991 he admitted that the years at the Renault car factory marked “the beginning of his career as a photographer and the end of his youth.” Five years later, in 1939, he was fired because he constantly was late. He was forced to try freelance advertising, engraving, and postcard photography to earn his living. At that time the French postcard industry was the largest in Europe, postcards served as greetings cards as well as vacation souvenirs.^[6]

In 1939 he was hired by Charles Rado of the Rapho photographic agency and travelled throughout France in search of picture stories. This is where he took his first professional street photographs.

War service and resistance[link]

Doisneau worked at Rapho until the outbreak of World War II, whereupon he was drafted into the French army as both a soldier and photographer. He was in the army until 1940 and from then until the end of the war in 1945 used his draughtsmanship, lettering artistry, and engraving skills to forge passports and identification papers for the French Resistance.

Post-war photography[link]

Robert Doisneau (left) and André Kertész in 1975, by Wolfgang H. Wögerer, at Arles

Some of Doisneau's most memorable photographs were taken after the war. He returned to freelance photography and sold photographs to Life and other international magazines. He briefly joined the Alliance Photo Agency but rejoined the Rapho agency in 1946 and remained with them throughout his working life, despite receiving an invitation from Henri Cartier-Bresson to join Magnum Photos.^[1][6]

His photographs never ridiculed the subjects; thus he refused to photograph women whose heads had been shaved as punishment for sleeping with Germans.^[3]

In 1948 he was contracted by Vogue to work as a fashion photographer. The editors believed he would bring a fresh and more casual look the magazine but Doisneau didn’t enjoy photographing beautiful women in elegant surroundings; he preferred street photography. When he could escape from the studio, he photographed ever more in the streets of Paris.

Group XV was established in 1946 in Paris to promote photography as art and drawing attention to the preservation of French photographic heritage. Doisneau joined the Group in 1950 and participated alongside Rene-Jacques, Willy Ronis, and Pierre Jahan.

The 1950s were Doisneau's peak, but the 1960s were his wilderness years. In the 1970s Europe began to change and editors looked for new reportage that would show the sense of a new social era. All over Europe, the old-style picture magazines were closing as television received the public's attention. Doisneau continued to work, producing children's books, advertising photography, and celebrity portraits including Alberto Giacometti, Jean Cocteau, Fernand Léger, Georges Braque, and Pablo Picasso.

Doisneau worked with writers and poets such as Blaise Cendrars and Jacques Prévert, and he credited Prevert with giving him the confidence to photograph the everyday street scenes that most people simply ignored.^[1]

[edit] Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (The Kiss)

In 1950 Doisneau created his most recognizable work for Life — Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville), a photograph of a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris,^[7] which became an internationally recognised symbol of young love in Paris. The identity of the couple remained a mystery until 1992.^[8]

Jean and Denise Lavergne erroneously believed themselves to be the couple in The Kiss, and when Robert and Annette (his older daughter and also his assistant at the time) met them for lunch in the 1980s he "did not want to shatter their dream" so he said nothing. This resulted in them taking him to court for "taking their picture without their knowledge", because under French law an individual owns the rights to their own likeness. The court action forced Doisneau to reveal that he posed the shot using Françoise Delbart and Jacques Carteaud, lovers whom he had just seen kissing, but had not photographed initially because of his natural reserve; he approached them and asked if they would repeat le baiser. He won the court case against the Lavergnes.^{[1][3][9][10]}

The couple in Le baiser were Françoise Delbart, 20, and Jacques Carteaud, 23, both aspiring actors. In 2005 Françoise Bornet (née Delbart) stated that, "He told us we were charming, and asked if we could kiss again for the camera. We didn't mind. We were used to kissing. We were doing it all the time then, it was delicious. Monsieur Doisneau was adorable, very low key, very relaxed." They posed at the Place de la Concorde, the Rue de Rivoli and finally the Hôtel de Ville. The photograph was published in the 12 June 1950, issue of Life.^[10] The relationship between Delbart and Carteaud only lasted for nine months.^[9] Delbart continued her acting career, but Carteaud gave up acting to become a wine producer.^[8]

In 1950 Françoise Bornet was given an original print of the photograph, bearing Doisneau's signature and stamp, as part of the payment for her "work", and thus her subsequent attempt at litigation in the 1990s was rejected by the court.^[3][8] In April 2005 she sold the print at auction for €155,000 to an unidentified Swiss collector via the Paris auctioneers Artcurial Briest-Poulain-Le Fur.^[3][8][11]

Personal life[link]

In 1936 Doisneau married Pierrette Chaumaison whom he had met in 1934 when she was cycling through a village where he was on holiday. They had two daughters, Annette (b.1942) and Francine (b.1947). From 1979 until his death, Annette worked as his assistant.^[3]

Pierrette died in 1993 suffering from Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Doisneau died six months later, having had a triple heart bypass and suffering from acute pancreatitis. Annette said "We won in the courts (re: The Kiss), but my father was deeply shocked. He discovered a world of lies, and it hurt him. 'The Kiss' ruined the last years of his life. Add that to my mother suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and I think it's fair to say he died of sadness."^[3]

Doisneau was in many ways a shy and humble man, similar to his photography, still delivering his own work at the height of his fame. He chastised Francine for charging an "indecent" daily fee of £2,000 for his work on a beer advertising campaign — he wanted only the rate of an "artisan photographer".^[3]

He lived in southern Paris (Gentilly, Val-de-Marne, Montrouge, and 13th arrondissement of Paris) throughout his life and died in 1994. He is buried in the cemetery at Raizeux beside his wife, Pierrette.

Awards and commemoration[link]

Collège Robert Doisneau, chemin de la Vieille Montagne de Clichy, Paris

Lycée Robert Doisneau de Corbeil-Essonnes (91)

Robert Doisneau was appointed a Chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honour in 1984.^[1]

He won several awards throughout his life, including:

• the Balzac Prize in 1986 (Honoré de Balzac)
• the Grand Prix National de la Photographie in 1983
• the Niépce Prize in 1956 (Nicéphore Niépce)
• the Kodak Prize in 1947

A short film, "Le Paris de Robert Doisneau", was made in 1973.

In 1992 the French actress and producer Sabine Azéma made the film Bonjour Monsieur Doisneau.

The Maison de la photographie Robert Doisneau in Gentilly, Val-de-Marne, is a photographic gallery named in his honour.

The photography of Robert Doisneau has had a revival since his death in 1994. Many of his portraits and photographs of Paris from the end of World War II through the 1950s have been turned into calendars and postcards, and have become icons of French life.

Exhibitions[link]

Publications[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Robert Doisneau

• Official website
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Robert Doisneau
• Website of the "Maison de la Photographie Robert-Doisneau"
• BBC News report on the auction of Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville
• Bruce Silverstein Gallery