A highlight of 2023 was the public lecture delivered by the Chief Justice, Rt. Hon. Dame Helen Winkelmann as part of the University of Canterbury’s 150th Anniversary celebrations. The lecture—titled "Keep Running Up That Hill: The Challenge of Educating a Legal Profession Fit for the Next 150 Years"—was published in (2023) 30 Canta LR 5.
Faculty staff were actively engaged in organising conferences throughout 2023. In July, we hosted both the Australasian Law Academics Association Conference and the Australasian Property Law Teachers Conference. Beyond Christchurch, UC faculty members chaired organising committees for the 30th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (ANZSIL) in Wellington (July) and the Asia-Pacific Disaster Law Conference in Bangkok (December). The latter was co-hosted by the Institute of Law, Emergencies, and Disasters (LEAD), led by Professor W. John Hopkins and Dr. Toni Collins.
Among the many research achievements of 2023, we are pleased to highlight that Professor Elizabeth Macpherson was awarded one of 12 national Rutherford Discovery Fellowships for her project "Blue Carbon Futures in Aotearoa New Zealand: Law, Climate, and Resilience." She also received the New Zealand Law Foundation Sir Ian Barker Published Article Award for 2022 for her article "Can Western Water Law Become More ‘Relational’? A Survey of Comparative Laws Affecting Water Across Australasia and the Americas," published in the Journal of the Royal Society (53:3, 295–424). Additionally, she was named the inaugural recipient of the UC Advancing Sustainability Research Award.
Further details on staff publications and awards can be found in this newsletter and on the UC website.
Professor Karen Scott
Associate Dean (Research)