Disasters are about society's response to hazards and law is at the heart of that.
Qualifications & Memberships
Research Interests
Dr. Hopkins is a comparative public lawyer who specialises in disaster law, multi-level governance, administrative justice and anti-corruption.
He is current Director of the LEAD Institute for Law Emergencies and Disasters based at UC. He is an Associate Investigator with the NZ Centre for Excellence in Seismic Resilience (QuakeCoRE) and leader of the Flagship 3, Regulating For Resilience Project. Other disaster related projects currently managed by Dr. Hopkins include the Pathways to Resilience stream of the National Science Challenge Urban Programme and the IFRC International Disaster Response Law (IDRL) in the Pacific Project.
In the field of Anti-Corruption, Dr. Hopkins currently leads an international European Union funded project examining Anti-Corruption Mechanisms in the South Pacific Region in a comparative context.
He has held a number of visiting positions including at the University of Georgetown (as the NZ Fulbright scholar), Central European University (Budapest), the University of Primorska (Slovenia) and the University of Oxford. In 2013 he was elected to the International Academy of Comparative Law and is the current New Zealand Chair of the Australasian Law Academics Association.
Recent Publications
- Ball RJ., Hudson-Doyle EE., Nuth M., Hopkins WJ., Brunsdon D. and Brown CO. (2022) Behavioural science applied to risk-based decision processes: a case study for earthquake prone buildings in New Zealand. Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 39(2): 144-164. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10286608.2022.2089980.
- Collins T. and Hopkins W. (2022) Post-Disaster Dispute Resolution: A New Zealand Case Study. International Handbook of Disaster Research http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8800-3_196-1.
- Hopkins WJ. and Masselot A. (2022) NEW ZEALAND COVID RESPONSE: Leadership, Communication, and Trust. .
- Masselot A. and Hopkins WJ. (2022) New Zealand Covid Response: Leadership, Communication and Trust. In Zahariadis N; Petridou E; Exadaktylos T; Sparf J (Ed.), Policy Styles and Trust in the Age of Pandemics: Global Threat, National Responses: 134-153. Oxon and New York: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003137399-11.
- Hopkins J. (2021) Smoke, Mirrors and Legal Uncertainty: The Rights and Wrongs of new Zealand's COVID-19 Response. In Kirchner S (Ed.), Governing the Crisis: Law, Human Rights and COVID-19: 232-248. Zurich: LIT Verlag Münster.