The Queensland Criminal Code: From Italy to Zanzibar - Antecedents and Descendants, An Exploration of Ideas is an exhibition curated by the Supreme Court Library of Queensland. The display was timed especially to coincide with the XVIth Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, held in Brisbane in July 2002. The exhibition was opened on Friday 19^th July by the Rt Hon Sir Harry Gibbs GCMG AC KBE, former Chief Justice of Australia.

View the Rt Hon. Sir Harry Gibbs GCMG AC KBE's address

This opportunity to celebrate Queensland's contribution to international law has resulted in a detailed exploration of Sir Samuel Griffith's Criminal Code and its subsequent global migration. Sir Samuel Griffith, former Chief Justice and Premier of Queensland in the late nineteenth century, drafted a Criminal Code which has endured the test of time, remaining substantially unscathed for more than a century.The evolution of the Queensland Criminal Code has been explored in three distinct phases: genesis, enactment and migration. The exhibition begins by tracing the origins of codification and, in particular, the works and personalities that inspired Sir Samuel Walker Griffith, the draftsman of the Queensland Criminal Code. It then examines the passage of the Code into law and follows its migration to other common law jurisdictions within Australia and Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific.

In today's international environment, a study of the Queensland Criminal Code provides a rare early example of the migration of ideas between civil and common law countries. With the Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law in Brisbane this year, this exhibition is a unique celebration of the global impact of Sir Samuel Griffith's work in drafting the Criminal Code of Queensland.

For further information about the exhibition, please contact the Supreme Court Library by telephoning +61 7 3247 4373.