Abusive Relationships and Violent Responses: The Reorientation of Self-Defense in Australia

The present Article is in three main parts. Part I discusses the difficulties in accommodating violent responses to battering within a traditional scheme of defenses, which is constructed around the distinction between justifications and excuses and designates self-defense as a justification. Part II analyzes recent developments in the law of self-defense in Australia. Self-defense in much of Australia has been effectively reoriented away from the model of a defense of justification. Part III offers some reflections on the significance of this reorientation for theories of exculpatory defenses, which are based on the distinction between justifications and excuses.