The Law School - Te Kura Ture
Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10292/10765
The AUT Law School - Te Kura Ture's primary objective is to be a centre of excellence in law and humanities research in New Zealand. The school has particular research strength in: Corporate Governance, Insurance Law, Family Law, Employment Law, Sports Law, Wills and Estates, and Media Law.
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Item COVID-19 Borrowings, Fiscal Consolidation, Tax Reforms and Geopolitical Implications for Samoa and Tonga(Thomson Reuters, 2025-09-01) Yong, Sue; Maples, AndrewThe COVID-19 pandemic triggered unprecedented global challenges, leading many countries to resort to extraordinary fiscal measures, including significant borrowings to mitigate the health, social, and economic impacts. Samoa and Tonga, two Pacific Island nations with small, open economies, were not immune to these global pressures. Both countries experienced significant economic disruptions due to the pandemic, particularly in critical sectors like tourism and remittances. These countries resorted to external borrowing to address the immediate fiscal needs of combating the pandemic, sustaining public health systems, and supporting their economies. To address the economic fallout caused by COVID-19, Samoa and Tonga turned to international borrowing, including loans from multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). While these borrowings were necessary to address the pandemic’s immediate economic and public health challenges, they have significantly increased the debt burdens of both countries. Rising debt levels, economic contraction, and limited revenue sources have strained public finances and heightened their debt levels (and risk of debt distress). To address their levels of debt, both Samoa and Tonga have implemented strategies for prudent debt management, fiscal consolidation, tax reforms, and getting support from the international community for economic recovery. However, the challenges of debt sustainability remain, particularly given the continued vulnerability of these countries to external shocks. Samoa and Tonga have historically occupied a strategic geopolitical position, often becoming focal points in more significant international power dynamics. Over the last decade, the region has witnessed growing geopolitical competition between the United States and China, with both nations seeking to extend their influence. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified these dynamics due to their increased external borrowings and heightened the risk of debt distress. While the borrowings were primarily for pandemic response, they have broader geopolitical concerns, particularly regarding China’s role as a critical creditor in the Pacific and the implications of these debts for the influence of external powers, including the United States. This article explores the linkages between COVID-19 borrowings, fiscal consolidation and high debt levels (and potential debt distress) in Samoa and Tonga- along with suggestions for raising further revenue – and the broader geopolitical tensions between the United States and China.Item The 'Strange' Sentencing: The New Stalking Laws and the Place of Stalking in Intimate Partner Violence(LexisNexis, 2025-08) Benton-Greig, Paulette; Towns, AlisonThe New Zealand government plans to introduce a stalking offence into the Crimes Act 1961. At the time of writing the Justice Select Committee has unanimously recommended that the Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Bill proceed. The Bill aims to improve the criminal justice response to stalking — a response that was demonstrably lacking when AUT law student Farzana Yaqubi complained to the police that she feared for her life due to Kanwarpal Singh’s disturbing stalking behaviours. She was stabbed to death by Mr Singh several days after her second police report in December 2022. Advocates for the Bill argue that there is a lack of appreciation amongst criminal justice agents that stalking is not “wrongheaded romance” but poses a serious threat of harm to victims. This misunderstanding is reinforced by the current situation in which legal responses to stalking are piecemeal and patchwork.Item A landmark conviction for war crimes in Sudan shows the wheels of global justice do turn - albeit slowly(The Conversation, 2025-10-10) Williamson, Myra[From introduction] Despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) being under immense pressure right now, its first conviction for crimes in Darfur, and the first for gender-based persecution as a crime against humanity, is a major win. On October 6, a senior leader of the Sudanese pro-government militia known as the Janjaweed, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, was found guilty on 27 charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The court rejected his defence of mistaken identity. From around August 2003, Sudanese government forces and the Janjaweed carried out large-scale attacks on civilians in the Darfur region. This included targeted killings, summary executions, assaults, rapes, theft of livestock and the forced displacement of more than two million people. The targets of this violence were mostly communities who shared the ethnicity of various rebel groups, and later other Arab and non-Arab tribes. It has taken over 20 years, but the delivery of justice is a major development for international law, for Sudan and for the ICC itself. The case demonstrates that while the wheels of international criminal justice turn slowly, they do turn.Item The NZ Super Fund has Israeli investments worth $35 million - could it divest?(The Conversation, 2024-11-07) Williamson, Myra[From introduction] The decision by Israel’s parliament to designate the United Nations’ Palestinian relief agency UNRWA a “terrorist organisation” has been condemned by many governments, with claims it will create a “catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster”. This came three months after the International Court of Justice’s landmark advisory opinion in July declaring Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful. All states now have a legal obligation to ensure they are not assisting Israel to continue its unlawful occupation. But with the reelection of Donald Trump as US president, how the international community will respond to breaches of international law becomes even less clear. New Zealand has criticised the United Nations Security Council for its failure to resolve the crisis, and has backed calls in the UN General Assembly for humanitarian ceasefires in Gaza.Item Bridging Trade, Culture and Taxation in Addressing Non-communicable Diseases in Polynesian Samoa and Tonga(Thomson Reuters, 2025-12-01) Yong, SueNon-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, and chronic respiratory conditions, are a global health crisis, responsible for 74 per cent of all deaths worldwide in 2019. In the Pacific nations of Samoa and Tonga, the NCD mortality rates are even more alarming, at 82 per cent and 79 per cent, respectively. NCDs impose severe economic and social burdens, exacerbating poverty, depleting public health resources, and threatening sustainable development. Central to this crisis in Polynesia is the dietary transition from traditional, nutrient-rich foods to highly processed, unhealthy imports – a consequence of globalisation and trade liberalisation. While the World Health Organization (WHO) has advocated fiscal interventions to combat NCDs, over 75 per cent of Pacific Island nations have implemented these measures with limited success. Fiscal policies using excise taxes on harmful products have been adopted to address NCDs, but cultural factors and the lack of a holistic policy framework have limited their effectiveness. The rising prevalence of NCDs in Samoa and Tonga underscores the insufficiency of fiscal policies when isolated from broader cultural and contextual considerations, including trade obligations. Samoa and Tonga’s integration into global trade agreements has restricted their ability to regulate unhealthy imports effectively. Simultaneously, cultural norms surrounding food and body image, deeply embedded in Polynesian society, complicate public health efforts. This article examines the intersection of fiscal policy, economic factors and cultural dynamics on NCDs in Samoa and Tonga. It analyses the effectiveness of current fiscal approaches and how fiscal measures can be undermined by cultural and contextual factors influencing food consumption. It argues for a more integrative, culturally responsive policy framework, where fiscal tools are complemented by interventions attuned to their specific societal and cultural norms. This holistic approach, which blends economic measures with culturally informed public health initiatives, offers a more robust pathway to mitigating the NCD crisis and addressing its significant socioeconomic impacts.Item Unsettling Legal Imperialism and Cultivating Homegrown Law: Why Law Schools Need Pacific Studies(University of Hawai'i Press, 2025) Monson, Rebecca; Asafo, Dylan; Foukona, Joseph D; Fa‘amatuainu, BridgetLegal scholarship has often been deeply informed by the study of Pacific legal systems, but in law schools across the world there has been very little interest in teaching about, let alone learning from, the region and its people. Scholars and insights from the region remain grossly underrepresented and pushed to the margins of legal scholarship, and this silencing reproduces the underrepresentation of Pasifika people in law schools, the legal profession, and critical global dialogues regarding justice systems. We argue that legal scholars, educators, and students have much to learn from increased engagement with Pacific studies. We suggest that such engagement is particularly critical for law schools across Oceania if we are to have any hope of developing the homegrown theories and practices necessary to contribute to anticolonial movements for liberation across our region and beyond.Item Reframing Gender and Development in Law Reform: The Case of Fa’atama Advocates in Samoa(Palgrave Macmillan, 2026-01-16) Fa’amatuainu, BridgetSamoa is an independent state located in Oceania, with a bijural legal system comprised of customary law and state law. The overwhelming majority of the population identify as heterosexual, with significantly fewer identifying as fa’afafine and even fewer as fa’atama. This limited representation of fa’atama highlights their ongoing demographic and political invisibility, which continues to hinder their recognition within both customary law and state law frameworks. The Samoa Fa’afafine Association (SFA) and gender advocates on the ground have been pushing for the recognition of the third gender in all platforms. In this chapter, I draw on fa’atama advocates’ experience in Samoa law reform, to emphasise the effects of the dominant and longstanding gender and development narratives, as a way to reframe and address some of the critical ways that those perceptions have been embedded in contemporary donor discourses. I focus on the advancement of fa’atama advocacy in Samoa law reform, to highlight local efforts to reframe the gender and development narratives and practices in law reform; and to examine the role of Samoan customs and arts to challenge the prevailing gender and development ideology, while proposing alternative narratives to reframing law and gender discourse.Item A UN finding of genocide in Gaza adds pressure on New Zealand to recognise a Palestinian state(The Conversation, 2025-09-18) Williamson, MyraItem Why a Proposed Law to Criminalise Protests Near Homes Is Too Vague to Do Much Good(The Conversation, 2025-09-26) Gledhill, KrisItem No-Cause Evictions Have the Potential to Hurt Renters – With Little Gain for Good Landlords(The Conversation, 2024-06-24) Williamson, MyraItem The World Court Says Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian Land Is Illegal: 4 Steps NZ Can Take Now(The Conversation, 2024-08-09) Williamson, MyraItem Critique of Hart’s Concept of Law in Samoa(Canterbury Law Review Trust, 2025-01-31) Fa’amatuainu, BridgetHart’s “Concept of Law” has gained widespread recognition in legal philosophy by proposing that a legal system is best understood as a combination of primary rules that impose obligations and secondary rules that grant the authority to create, modify, and interpret those primary rules. One aspect in Hart’s concept concerns the prelegal or primitive system, consisting of a society governed solely by primary rules of conduct without secondary rules. Thus, it proceeds to assert that such a system exists in a small, stable community bound by shared beliefs and kinship. This article illustrates that upon closer scrutiny within legally intricate and bijural contexts – such as the case of Samoa, where both primary and secondary rules co-exist – the argument proves to be fundamentally flawed. Moreover, this critique highlights the limitations in the standard application of Hart’s Concept of Law in other post-colonial contexts, including Aotearoa New Zealand and South Africa. The article further argues that more critical and nuanced perspectives are needed to examine the legal reality of Hart’s theory in modern post- colonial contexts.Item Hearing All That Is Expressed: A Feminist Listening to the Silencing of Rape Complainants While Giving Evidence(SAGE Publications, 2025) Benton-Greig, PauletteIn this article, I bring a feminist ear to 30 Aotearoa/New Zealand rape trials to explore what they reveal about courtroom listening to adult female complainants. Listening for all complainant expression exposes myriad instantiations of complainants being silenced and misheard, and their words refused, dismissed and reframed. From these, I identify three practices of silencing that demonstrate not only a failure to hear and listen, but also the double abandonment of ‘ethical loneliness’ in which institutions that are meant to hear and care, force speech under the guise of listening, but then fail to respond and to protect. This feminist listening draws attention to the ethical and social dimensions of why many rape complainants experience giving evidence at trial as re-victimising. I argue that it suggests the potential benefits of in-court observation programmes and that the practices of rape trial questioning need close examination and reform.Item Seabed Mining Is Becoming an Environmental Flashpoint – New Zealand Will Have to Pick a Side Soon(The Conversation, 2025-06-16) Williamson, MyraItem Introduction to Volume 8(1) [Editorial](International Contemporary Ethnography Across the Disciplines (CEAD), 2025-05-19) Fortin Cornejo, Moira; Thom, Katey; LisahunterItem Investment Art and the Operation of the Good Faith Buyer Defence for New Zealand(Otago Law Review, 2024-04-01) Thomas, RoderickItem Nuisance and the Private Space: Reflection on Fearn v The Tate Gallery(Université de Montréal, 2025-05-13) Beever, AllanDespite much criticism, Fearn v The Tate Gallery is one of the most important decisions of recent times. This is not because of the way in which it develops the doctrine of the law of private nuisance, but rather because it recognises an aspect of the right to property that is crucial to our liberty. This is the idea that property in a house, apartment or the like gives one a right to what we can call a private space. This article locates the recognition of this right in Fearn v The Tate Gallery and demonstrates why it is so important.Item Citizens and Mental Distress: Whānau/Citizen Stories of Police Engagement While Experiencing Mental Distress in Aotearoa New Zealand(Auckland University of Technology, 2024-05-27) Gordon, Sarah; Thom, Katey; Black, Stella; Hunter, Kiri; Hayward, Madeline; Kidd, J; Burnside, David; Hastings, Jessica; Butler, Kerri; Cooper, GrantItem Responding to People in Mental Distress: Exploring the Preventative Role of New Zealand Police in the Community(Auckland University of Technology, 2024-05-27) Thom, Katey; Gordon, Sarah; Black, Stella; Hunter, Kiri; Hayward, Madeline; Kidd, J; O'Brien, Anthony; McKenna, Brian; Vaka, SioneItem How Will You Hear My Voice? The Development of Indigenous-Centred Supported Decision-Making for Mental Health Service Users in Aotearoa New Zealand(Northumbria University Library, 2025-02-21) Lenagh-Glue, Jessie; Tamatea, Armon; O'Brien, Anthony; Glue, Paul; Potiki, Johnnie; Newton-Howes, Giles; Thom, Katey; Gledhill, Kris; Gordon, SarahThere is an urgent need in the delivery of mental health services to incorporate a more human-rights oriented approach, and promote supported decision-making, whereby individuals are supported their own mental health decisions based on their will and preferences. Aotearoa/New Zealand’s current Mental Health Act enables the use of compulsory treatment, which breaches both international obligations under the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi), the covenant between Māori and the Crown which demands partnership and equity and the principle of self-determination for Māori. Mental Health Advance Preference Statements (MAPS) have been identified as a tool to promote supported decision-making and allow people a voice in their own care. This paper examines the foundations of a new project which is Māori-centred and co-produced with stakeholders, including tāngata whaiora who experience mental distress and those who work and research mental health services. The aim of this project is to create and implement culturally appropriate and locally relevant MAPS-type tools and then evaluate the impact of implementation. It is posited this will lead to improvements in health and equity, particularly for Māori.