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 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)(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.Item A Last Minute Amendment to NZ's Gang Legislation Risks Making a Bad Law Worse(The Conversation, 2024-09-06) Gledhill, KrisItem ‘Fortress New Zealand’: Examining Refugee Status Determination for 11,000 Asylum Claimants Through Integrated Data(Institute for Government and Policy Studies. Victoria University of Wellington., 2025-02-17) Fadgen, Tim; Malihi, Arezoo Zarintaj; Manning, Deborah; Mills, Harry; Marlowe, JayThis article presents a profile of Aotearoa New Zealand’s asylum claimants – people who have sought recognition as a refugee or protected person and then applied for a temporary visa. Sourcing data from New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), we considered 11,091 refugee claimants between 1997 and 2022. The data suggests that the path to recognition can be long and circuitous, requiring multiple applications before status recognition. The data also reveals a wide health and mental health services uptake gap despite recent policy changes. When read together, we contend that this data supports the notion that everyday, discerning bordering exists in New Zealand through different forms of permeability and permanence based on gender and ethnicity. The article concludes with some insights for future policy directions.Item Australian churches collectively raise billions of dollars a year – why aren’t they taxed?(The Conversation, 2024-05-06) Gupta, Ranjana; Boccabella, DaleItem We Know Enough About Brain Development to Know Youth Offending Reforms Probably Won’t Work(The Conversation, 2024-11-26) Gledhill, KrisItem Effective Participation(LexisNexis New Zealand, 2024-06-01) Brookbanks, WarrenThe notion of "effective participation" is now firmly embedded in the discourse around unfitness to stand trial. It signifies what is essential in determining whether a person has the capacity to be an engaged participant in criminal proceedings. Although it is a concept which has assumed a high profile in the jurisprudence of unfitness to stand trial, both in New Zealand and other English common law jurisdictions, it is still poorly understood. In particular, it is still unclear how "effective participation" engages with statutory and other non-statutory criteria for determining unfitness to stand trial. Does effective participation, in some sense, represent a "flowering" of what is implied in fitness to plead, or does it stand as an independent construct superimposed on statutory.