LEAD Projects

Funder: 
QuakeCoRE (DT3)

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins, Natalie Baird and Annick Masselot

Funder:

QuakeCoRE

Lead Researchers:

Annick Masselot, Silke Clausing (Research associate)

Project description:

This project is concerned with the impact of earthquakes and other natural disasters on family relationships/individual vulnerability within a family and their legal protection in three comparable jurisdictions in the Pacific region.  It will focus on two critical aspects impacting parents and families during and following disasters:  Firstly, the extent to which the legal framework and policies take into account parental caregiving responsibilities, and secondly, their alignment with international experience which indicates an increase in family violence following disasters. As both areas disproportionally affect women, the project will be underpinned by gender perspectives.

Funders:

• National Science Challenges (NSC): Resilience to Nature’s Challenges
• Urban Theme
• Determining Volcanic Risk in Auckland (DEVORA)

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins and Thomas Wilson 

Project Description:
Building upon existing work in the field, this project examines the resilience of New Zealand’s legal and constitutional framework in the wake an Auckland Volcanic Field Eruption. The project utilises scenarios developed by the DEVORA research programme to assess the ability of the current structures to deal with such an event and considers how such structures could be further developed to increase their resilience. Working alongside DEVORA stakeholders (including Auckland Council), the project aims to provide not only a better understanding of the specific issue of volcanic risk to the legal framework (and thus effective response and recovery) but more generally expand our knowledge of disaster law and governance in a New Zealand context. Holly Faulkner completed the project as part of a funded PhD scholarship, producing the thesis Ready or Not? Legal Preparedness for an Auckland Volcanic Field Eruption.

Lead Researcher:
Natalie Baird 

UC UPC Submission Group:
Erin Gough, Andrew Pullar, Christy Pullyn, Jennifer Sangaroonthong, Sara Tan and Joy Twemlow (LLB Students) 

Year:
2013 

Project Description:
Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Human Rights Impacts of the Earthquakes.

Funder:
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins, Finau Leveni, Leticia Smith and Holly Faulkner 

Project Description:
Pacific Island Countries are extremely vulnerable to climate change and natural hazards; the region hosts five of the ten most at-risk countries in the world. As such, it is critical that domestic laws and policies provide clear rules of the road to guide national and international humanitarian efforts. The project examined the legal preparedness for international disaster assistance across the 16 English-speaking member states of the Pacific islands Forum and provides an assessment of domestic disaster risk management arrangements against the ‘Guidelines for the domestic facilitation and regulation of international disaster relief and initial recovery assistance’ (IDRL guidelines) as promulgated by the IFRC and accepted by all UN member states as the key measurement in its assessment. The complete work is freely available online via the IFRC Asia-Pacific website.

Funder:
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins, Finau Leveni, Leticia Smith and Holly Faulkner 

Project Description:
Pacific Island Countries are extremely vulnerable to climate change and natural hazards; the region hosts five of the ten most at-risk countries in the world. As such, it is critical that domestic laws and policies provide clear rules of the road to guide national and international humanitarian efforts. The project examined the legal preparedness for international disaster assistance across the 16 English-speaking member states of the Pacific islands Forum and provides an assessment of domestic disaster risk management arrangements against the ‘Guidelines for the domestic facilitation and regulation of international disaster relief and initial recovery assistance’ (IDRL guidelines) as promulgated by the IFRC and accepted by all UN member states as the key measurement in its assessment. The complete work is freely available online via the IFRC Asia-Pacific website.

Funder:
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins, Finau Leveni, Leticia Smith and Holly Faulkner 

Project Description:
Pacific Island Countries are extremely vulnerable to climate change and natural hazards; the region hosts five of the ten most at-risk countries in the world. As such, it is critical that domestic laws and policies provide clear rules of the road to guide national and international humanitarian efforts. The project examined the legal preparedness for international disaster assistance across the 16 English-speaking member states of the Pacific islands Forum and provides an assessment of domestic disaster risk management arrangements against the ‘Guidelines for the domestic facilitation and regulation of international disaster relief and initial recovery assistance’ (IDRL guidelines) as promulgated by the IFRC and accepted by all UN member states as the key measurement in its assessment. The complete work is freely available online via the IFRC Asia-Pacific website.

Funder:
Santander Fellowship 

Lead Researchers:
Annick Masselot (in collaboration with Roberta Gurrina, University of Surrey, UK)

Year:
2016 - 2017

Funder:
Jean Monnet Programme, European Commission

Lead Researchers:
Annick Masselot, G. Taylor and Dr. K Vadura

Awarded the 2014 RISK Award for the best project proposal for disaster prevention in 2014 by the Global Risk Forum, Davos, UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (ISDR) and the Munich Re Foundation from Knowledge to Action.

Funders:
Earthquake Commission (ECQ) Biennial Research Funding Programme

Lead Researcher: Toni Collins (in collaboration with Resilient Organisations)

Project Description:
Organisations have a number of regulatory obligations to protect their employees and other stakeholders, such as those in the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA). The HSWA has a core purpose to “protect workers and other persons against harm to their health, safety, and welfare by eliminating or minimising risks arising from work….”.  On the surface, the legislation is well placed to promote seismic risk reduction activities, however we currently have little understanding of how organisations interpret and act on obligations within the HSWA to reduce seismic risk. Understanding the obligations imposed by current legislation, as well as how legislation is interpreted and acted upon by organisations, will help us to determine:

1. The potential impact of legislation influencing disaster risk reduction behaviours; and
2. How legislative levers could be better utilised to encourage preparedness and reduce economic loss and injury following natural hazard events.

Read the final report here.

• Eve Boister "Legal Options for the Resolution of Abandoned Buildings and Sites Post-Christchurch Earthquake" (2021)

Joint Projects with the Urban Resilience Cluster (CuRE):

• Alise Winter "Exploring the Role of insurance in Climate Change Adaption" (2021)

• Tylan Collins "Estimating the Threat of Sea Level Rise to people Over the Next 100 Years" (2021)

• Sam Paquier "Reviewing and Building on Existing Approaches for Climate Change Adaption Planning" (2021)

Funders:
QuakeCoRE Strategic Project Fund

Lead Researcher:
Natalie Baird 

Date:
2018 - 2020 

Project Description:
The project examined two preliminary Canterbury-based case studies of Human Rights in the context of disaster:

1. “Disasters, Human Rights and Vulnerability: Reflections from the Experiences of Older Persons in Post-Quake Canterbury”;
2. “Remedies for Human Rights Violations in Post-Quake Canterbury: the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises”

Funder: 
QuakeCoRE (Flagship 3) 

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins, Toni Collins, Cameron Eade and Holly Faulkner 

Project Description:
The project provides an assessment of the current regulatory environment and the level of building stock resilience the system is likely to deliver, with a focus on multi-storey, multi-occupancy buildings in the Wellington CBD. The project aims to other aspects of QuakeCoRE’s research programmes to provide an overall regulatory map. On the basis of this, the Wellington Case Study project will incorporate comparative understandings from overseas examples, particularly focussing on intensively developed CBDs with similar regulatory models with a view to providing future directions for seismic regulation. 

Funder:

UC School of Law Research Fund

Lead Researchers:

Elizabeth Toomey and Toni Collins, in collaboration with Emily Walton (Wynn Williams)