Seminars
The seminars aim to raise awareness and debate about concepts of public law and policy, and in doing so these seminars examine a number of challenging legal issues and topics that are prominent in the public domain. Thus these seminars will be of interest to the legal community as a whole, to practitioners, and to students alike. The seminars draw upon the legal skills and knowledge of eminent legal academics and practitioners to talk on specific legal issues, which provides holistic and objective discussions of the legal topics in question.
2023 Past Seminars
15 March | - Professor Valmaine Toki - Associate Professor Linda Te Aho - Associate Professor Robert Joseph | The Enhanced Role of Tikanga Māori within the NZ Legal System after the Supreme Court's Judgment in the Peter Ellis case |
17 May | - Hon Sir David Baragwanath KNZM KC | ESSENTIAL FRESHWATER: finding common support for the Treaty of Waitangi and its effect on basic issues; here essential freshwater |
2022 Past Seminars
9 March | - Amokura Kawharu (President of the New Zealand Law Commission) | “The Role of a Law Commissioner” |
11 May | - Timothy Lindsay (Founding partner of litigation firm Lindsay & Francis, and is recognised by Chambers & Partners, Legal 500, Benchmark Litigation and Who’s Who Legal as one of the leading litigators in the country) | "The importance of independence and its role in the legal profession and the rule of law" |
13 April | - Sir Ken Keith (Former judge of the Supreme Court and of the International Court of Justice) | "Continuity and Change: Heritage and Heresy in the Law" |
28 September | - Judge Connell (Chair of The Victims' Special Claims Tribunal and the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority and an Acting-Warranted Judge for Jury/Youth) | "The impact of COVID on the courts in recent times, what has worked and what improvements can be made" |
2021 Past Seminars
24 March | - Dr Penelope Ridings (Member of the pool of arbitrators of the WTO Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement) | “International Law and New Zealand: An Insider’s View” |
28 April | - Dr Rebecca Dudley (International Humanitarian Law advisor to the New Zealand Red Cross) - Katy Armstong (Frequent speaker on New Zealand immigration issues and acted as Consultant to the New Zealand Association of Migration & Investment) | “Immigration: Humanitarian Perspectives and the Process during the Pandemic” |
19 May | - Marcia Rohario Murray (Senior Solicitor at the Ministry for the Environment) - Natalie Coates (Partner at Kahui Legal) - Dr Valmaine Toki - Associate Professor Linda Te Aho | He ara tika: Posthumous Restoration of Mana in the Peter Ellis Case |
29 September | - Dr Richard Cornes (Essex Law School, Essex University, England) | Law, Psychoanalysis, and Courts. A Timely Therapeutic Renaissance in the Age of AI |
2020 Past Seminars
5 August | - Professor Claire Breen - Associate Professor Trevor Daya-Winterbottom - Associate Professor Nathan Cooper | - “The Right to Health and Covid 19: A Core Right in New Zealand's Legal Response" - "COVID - climate change, RMA reform, and the Rule of Law" - "COVID-19 and identity: planetary boundaries, ethical boundaries, and the will to change" |
16 September | - Professor Alexander Gillespie - Simon Schofield (Teaching Fellow) - Dr Alberto Alvarez-Jimenez | - “Next Steps: Law and Policy moving forward from a global pandemic” - "Employment Law during the COVID-19 Lockdown" - “Covid-19 and the Forgotten Excuse of Necessity in Customary International Law” |
7 October | - Dr Gay Morgan - Associate Professor Trevor Daya-Winterbottom - Mr Jesse Savage (Associate at Norris Ward McKinnon) | - Covid-19 and the Law |