COVID-19 and Beyond: legal and constitutional dimensions

This project is a collaboration between law scholars throughout New Zealand. The materials here form a repository of resources available to the law community.

Community library and repository of resources

A multi-university initiative involving scholars from:

• University of Auckland
• Auckland University of Technology
• University of Waikato
• University of Canterbury
• University of Otago
• Victoria University of Wellington

This community library and repository of resources hosts scholarship, analysis and commentary on the legal and constitutional implications (broadly conceived) of the COVID-19 emergency and the New Zealand government’s response, and on policy and law reforms in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally in the post-COVID era.

• Scholarship, analysis and comments on New Zealand developments
  • Public law
    (lockdown and alert level framework; democracy and rule-of-law; government decision-making; human rights (generally); disaster law)
  • Justice system
    (criminal and civil legal systems; criminal justice; policing; prisons)
  • Te Tiriti and Te Ao Māori
    (rangatiratanga, Treaty partnership, Māori leadership, rights)
  • Community welfare and wellbeing
    (public health; housing; employment; welfare; family violence; immigration; refugees education; human rights (socio-economic))
  • Technology and privacy
    (data security; contact tracing; privacy; algorithmic decisions-making; state security)
  • International law
    (trade and investment law; public international law; Pacific; immigration; refugees; private international law; intellectual property)
  • Sustainability
    (resource management; environment; climate change)
  • Private law
    (banking; finance; insurance; insolvency; bankruptcy; liability; class actions)

• Legislation, instruments, case law, parliamentary and governmental material

• Comparative and international developments

• Podcasts and webinars

Project background

From the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, legal scholars across New Zealand’s universities have stepped up to perform our responsibilities as public intellectuals and our role of critic and conscience of society. This repository brings that work together in a comprehensive and easily accessible form, to provide greater visibility for that work and to stimulate ongoing analysis and debate about lessons learned and appropriate responses to new challenges and changed circumstances.

The repository is not soliciting original material; rather it is a community library designed to capture on an ongoing basis the important contributions that have been published elsewhere. We hope this resource will be useful to policy-makers, media and researchers in many disciplines, as well as legal academics.

For legal scholars, in particular, we anticipate that ready access to this material in a rapidly moving legal context will stimulate responses to each other’s work and move these discussions forward across a wide range of legal topics and forums.

Project members and supporters

This community library and repository of resources is a collaborative project involving scholars from law faculties and research centres from across New Zealand universities, including:

• University of Auckland
• Auckland University of Technology (AUT)
• University of Waikato
• Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington
• University of Canterbury
• University of Otago

It is also supported from research centres from those universities:

• Aotearoa New Zealand Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law (University of Auckland)
• Centre for ICT Law (University of Auckland)
• Centre for Law and Policy in Emerging Technologies (University of Otago)
• Centre for Non-Adversarial Justice (AUT)
• Children’s Issues Centre (University of Otago)
• Disaster Law Group (University of Canterbury)
• Centre for Legal Theory (Auckland)
• New Zealand Centre for Public Law (Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington)
• New Zealand Centre for International Economic Law (Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington)
• Waikato Public Law and Policy Research Unit (Waikato University)

Library project leaders

• AProf Dean Knight, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington
• Prof Jane Kelsey, University of Auckland
• Prof Joel Colón-Ríos, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington

Library researcher/curator

• Maisy Bentley, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington