From left are event organisers Dr Lucas Clover-Alcolea and Associate Professor Edward Willis, with keynote speaker the Honourable Sir Stephen Kós .
The evolving landscape of private law in Aotearoa New Zealand was the focus of a symposium hosted by Otago’s Faculty of Law on 10 February.
Event organiser Associate Professor Edward Willis says, “The focus was on issues that broadly count as ‘private law’ – the law the governs how individuals interact with each other.”
The Honourable Sir Stephen Kós, a Supreme Court judge, gave the keynote speech on “Judicial Review of Discretionary Powers in Contract and Trust”.
He says this conference provided a broad basis for assessing the important topic of the future of private law.
“Private law is fundamentally important to the lives people live and how we regulate that and how we govern it by the arrangement we make ourselves through contracts, through trusts, is part and parcel of the economic and societal structure of this country.
“A conference like this, which has been extremely well organised by the University, provides a really broad basis for assessing how those regulation and limits apply and what changes we should make to them,” says Justice Kós.
Professor Shelley Griffiths, centre, with Dr Adam Waldman, left, and Professor Shelagh McCracken, both from the University of Sydney.
This was the inaugural event of a regular symposium to foster a community of private law scholars in New Zealand and beyond.
Chairs of the event included Professor Allan Beever, Daniel Kalderimis KC, Isaac Hikaka, and Professor Jodi Gardner.
A range of experts from both academia and practice attended, with panels organised in the themes of tort, contract, private law and regulation, trusts and fiduciaries, private law, and tikanga and property law.
As well as presentations and discussions on the day, many of the papers will be published as an edited collection by Springer.
Dean of the Faculty of Law, Professor Shelley Griffiths, says her team was pleased to host the range of guests, including colleagues from Australia and Singapore.
“This event is part of enhancing our research and relationships with other institutions and connecting academia and practice. I particularly want to acknowledge the support of the New Zealand Law Foundation, who have given a grant to the dean of each law faculty. I have chosen to use some of this to support activities like this,” Professor Griffiths says.
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