LLB (Hons)(1982); LLM (1985)(Canterbury); PhD (Otago)(2000)
Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand (1984)
Contact
Tel +64 3 479 8842
Office 9th Floor – 9N2
Email rex.ahdar@otago.ac.nz
Teaching
Competition Law, Contract Law, Law and the Sports Industry, and Law and Religion.
Research interests
Rex has research interests in competition law and policy, church-state relations, religious freedom, contract law, and sports law.
His books: Competition Law and Policy in New Zealand (Law Book Co, 1991); God and Government: The New Zealand Experience (Otago University Press, 2000) (with John Stenhouse); Law and Religion (Ashgate, 2000); Worlds Colliding: Conservative Christians and the Law (Ashgate, 2001) (Routledge, 2017); Shari'a in the West (Oxford University Press, 2010) (with Nicholas Aroney); Religious Freedom in the Liberal State (2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 2013) (with Ian Leigh); Research Handbook on Law and Religion (Edward Elgar, 2018); The Evolution of Competition Law in New Zealand (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Background
Rex Ahdar joined the Faculty in September 1985 as a Lecturer.
He has spent his research leave at: Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley (1991); TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland (1991); the Department of Private Law, University of Edinburgh (1998); Sydney University Law School and Emory University Law School (2005), National University of Samoa and Piula Theological College (2011); Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2018).
Rex has published articles in journals such as: Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Cambridge Law Journal, Modern Law Review, McGill Law Journal, Ratio Juris, Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, The Antitrust Bulletin, Journal of Contract Law, Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, Journal of Church and State, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, Journal of Law, Religion and State, Rutgers Journal of Law & Religion, Utilities Law Review.
Honours include: Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at UC Berkeley, 1991; Visiting Professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2018; Membership of the Editorial Board of the Australian Business Law Review,New Zealand Business Law Quarterly, Journal of Law, Religion and State, and the Journal of Church and State.
Selected publications available online
- The Evolution of Competition Law in New Zealand (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)
- The Supreme Courts' Icing on the Trans-Atlantic Cakes. Oxford Journal of Law and Religion (2020) 9:212–228 (with Jessica Giles)
- Navigating Law and Religion: Familiar Waterways, Rivers Less Travelled and Uncharted Seas. In Rex Ahdar (ed) Research Handbook on Law and Religion, (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2018) 2-15
- Exemptions for Religion or Conscience under the Canopy of the Rule of Law. Journal of Law, Religion & State (2017) 5: 185-213
- Foreign Ownership and Wealth Transfers in New Zealand Competition Law. Competition & Consumer Law Journal (2017) 25: 26-52
- The Case Against Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. New Zealand Law Review [2016] 459-506.
- The Empty Idea of Equality Meets the Unbearable Fullness of Religion. Journal of Law, Religion and State (2016) 4: 146-178 doi 10.1163/22124810-00402002
- Companies as Religious Liberty Claimants. Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 5: 1-27 (2016). First published online February 17, 2016 doi:10.1093/ojlr/rww001
- Charity Begins at the Politically Correct Home? The Family First Case. Otago Law Review 14: 171-189 (2015).
- The Abolition of the Group Boycott Prohibition from New Zealand Competition Law. Competition and Consumer Law Journal 23: 78-100 (2015).
- Real threat or a mere shadow?: School chaplaincy programs and the secular state. University of Queensland Law Journal 33: 29-41 (2014)
- Solemnisation of Same-sex Marriage and Religious Freedom. Ecclesiastical Law Journal 16: 283-305 (2014)
- Contract doctrine, predictability and the nebulous exception. Cambridge Law Journal 73: 39-60 (2014)
- Religious Freedom in the Liberal State, 2nd edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)(with Ian Leigh)
- Is secularism neutral?Ratio Juris 26: 403-28 (2013)
- Post Secularism and the European Court of Human Rights: Or How God Never Really Went Away.Modern Law Review 75: 1064-1098 (2012) (with Ian Leigh)
- The scope of religious freedom in Samoa. Journal of Church and State 54: 1-24 (2012)