LAWS362-15S2 (C) Semester Two 2015

Natural Disasters and the Law

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 13 July 2015
End Date: Sunday, 15 November 2015
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 24 July 2015
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 9 October 2015

Description

The course will cover (a) the constitutional, administrative and legislative framework for coping with natural disasters in New Zealand; (b) the legal impact of natural disasters on contractual relationships generally and on employment contracts, residential tenancies and insurance contracts; (c) disaster risk management and mitigation as it applies to legal issues; (d) a range of particular issues raised by natural disasters, presented by UC staff, guest lecturers or panellists. These include, but are not limited to, issues such as family law, resource management, insurance, criminal justice and law enforcement, media and privacy law issues, frustration of contract, commercial and residential tenancies and employment law as they may apply in a disaster or post-disaster context. The identification of disaster risks which may affect lawyers and legal issues and how these risks may be managed and reduced.

The course will cover:
1.  Case studies of the legal impacts of selected natural disasters, including the Canterbury earthquakes;
2.  The constitutional, administrative and legislative framework for coping with natural disasters in New Zealand; and
3.  Selected legal issues arising from natural disasters and possible law reforms to assist in dealing with them. These will be discussed through lectures and presentations by guest lecturers and panelists.

Learning Outcomes

This course will enable you to:
o  acquire knowledge and understanding of the core legal issues which arise from natural disasters and affect recovery from such disasters;
o  understand and apply those principles to different kinds of disasters and to particular situations;
o  consider critically issues of principle and policy raised by the present law and its operation in practice, and, consequently, to consider whether reform is desirable; and
o  further develop skills in legal research, analysis and writing.

Prerequisites

(i) LAWS101 and (ii) LAWS110;
Students enrolled in other degrees, who do not have the above prerequisites and corequisites, but have completed appropriate courses in another discipline, may apply to the Head of Department for a waiver.

Co-requisites

LAWS202-LAWS206
Students enrolled in other degrees, who do not have the above prerequisites and corequisites, but have completed appropriate courses in another discipline, may apply to the Head of Department for a waiver.

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Jeremy Finn

Lecturers

Ursula Cheer , John Hopkins , Sascha Mueller , Debra Wilson and Elizabeth Toomey

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Essay 18 Sep 2015 50%
Take Home Test 14 Oct 2015 50%


The course assessment will be advised in the first week of lectures.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $737.00

International fee $3,450.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

Minimum enrolments

This course will not be offered if fewer than 10 people apply to enrol.

For further information see Faculty of Law .

All LAWS362 Occurrences

  • LAWS362-15S2 (C) Semester Two 2015