News

• On 8 November 2024, Carrie Leonetti, co-Director of the New Zealand Centre for Human Rights Law, Policy, and Practice, Member of the UC Berkeley Centre for Comparative Gender Equality and Ant-Discrimination Law, and Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley hosted, moderated, and presented at the conference on “Intimate Partner Violence and Gender Discrimination in the Family Court” at UC Berkeley. A recording of the conference is available on the UC Berkeley website.
  
  The recording is the first event under "Past Events".

• Staff seminar by visiting scholar Dr Eleni Frantziou

In early 2024, the Centre hosted Dr Eleni Frantziou as a visiting scholar. Dr Frantziou is an Associate Professor in Public Law and Human Rights at Durham University. Her research focuses on the application of human rights in legal disputes between private parties (“horizontal effect”). Dr Frantziou’s staff seminar involved presentation of her findings on the extent of horizontal effect in written constitutions currently in force around the world. Dr Frantziou challenges the assumption that the horizontal application of constitutional rights is an exceptional feature of only a handful of constitutions.

• Faculty of Law involvement in the 10th annual ICON-S conference on The Future of Public Law

The 10th annual ICON-S (International Society of Public Law) conference was held at IE University in Madrid over 8-10 July 2024. Centre Co-Director Alexandra Allen-Franks presented on “Using the inherent power of the court as a tool to remedy human rights violations” on a panel organised around the theme of “Small ‘c’ Constitutional Interpretation and Change”. Centre affiliated members Dr Jane Norton and Associate Professor Timothy Kuhner also presented work. Dr Jane Norton presented on “Limiting rights during a pandemic – methodological lessons from Aotearoa New Zealand” on a panel organised around the theme of “Deference, Accountability and Administrative Justice: A View from the Common Law World”. Associate Professor Timothy Kuhner chaired a panel on “Oligarchy: Should Public Law Respond?” which he also presented on. Tim also presented on “Oligarchy vs Democratic Integrity: the Great Divide in Comparative Constitutional Interpretation” as part of the “Democratic Integrity: Comparative Constitutional Perspectives” panel and on “The Corruption of Public Law and the Need for Constitutional Renewal” as part of the “Human Rights, Technology and Corruption” panel. The conference was attended by over 2000 people, with a keynote from Siofra O’Leary (ex-president of the European Court of Human Rights) titled “Human Rights in Times of Trouble: Some Reflections on Sustainability and Resilience”.

• Co-director Dr Alexandra Allen-Franks presented at a human rights/intellectual property conference in Italy

In July, Centre Co-Director Alexandra Allen-Franks presented at the 42nd annual ATRIP conference on the registration of offensive trade marks with a presentation titled “Trade mark registration through the lens of the integrity principle”. Although intellectual property issues may not often be top of mind when one thinks of human rights law, the four day conference organised around the theme of Intellectual Property, Ethical Innovation and Sustainability illuminated multiple human rights issues arising in intellectual property law. These include the role of trade mark law in promoting or restricting freedom of expression; the interaction between patent law and the right to life or health; and interaction between copyright law and cultural appropriation. Alexandra is currently developing a course on Human Rights and Intellectual Property Law and is hoping to offer this to students in future.

• Centre involvement with Substantive Equality Month

Substantive Equality Month ran for four weeks over July-August. Centre Co-Director Alexandra Allen-Franks was a member of the Substantive Equality Month sub-committee which organised events over the course of the month centred around the theme of “the housing crisis”. Alexandra facilitated an event on the interaction of the Treaty of Waitangi Te Tiriti o Waitangi and housing in Aotearoa New Zealand which involved presentation of research by Jacqueline Paul and commentary from Max Harris. Alexandra also ran an event at the end of the month which involved Faculty of Law engagement with representatives from the Ministry of Justice ahead of New Zealand’s 2025 state report on compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

• Jennifer Thompson: "The Myth of Closure" - 16 April 2024 at the Stone Lecture Theatre
  
  Jennifer is the Founder and President of Healing Justice, which aims to address the personal toll of wrongful convictions on all involved. Jennifer founded Healing Justice based on her experience with a failed criminal justice process that sent an innocent person to prison and left the true perpetrator free to commit additional crimes.
  
  Jennifer is an internationally known advocate for criminal justice reform, focusing on the human impact of wrongful convictions, the fallibility of eyewitness testimony, the need to combat sexual violence, and the healing power of forgiveness. She was a member of the North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission and worked with the North Carolina legislature to pass the Racial Justice Act. She is the co-author of the New York Times Bestseller, Picking Cotton. Jennifer will discuss “The Myth of Closure”.

• June 2024: Carrie Leonetti presents “The Problems with Parental Alienation” at the plenary session of the International Forum on Parental Alienation and Domestic Violence at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Professor Leonetti’s talk immediately followed the Opening Statement by Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls. Professor Leonetti is part of an international forum of researchers funded by a grant from the Canadian government who study the intersection of gender-based violence, child custody proceedings, and gender bias internationally. Her presentation focused on the way that the junk science of “parental alienation” fosters gendered myths about family violence in family courts and prevents the justice system from protecting victims.

• June 2024: Carrie Leonetti presented “The Need for a Gendered Understanding of Intimate Partner Violence and Post-Separation Lethality in European Family Law” during the Workshop on Gender Analysis in EU Political Economy at the Robert Schuman Centre at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Carrie’s paper was part of a workshop panel that focused on mainstreaming intersectionality in EU gender-equality discourse.

• September 2023: Alexandra Allen-Franks presented a paper at the European Human Rights Law Conference held at the University of Cambridge.

Alexandra recently represented the Centre at the European Human Rights Law Review’s inaugural Bi-Annual Conference, held at the University of Cambridge over 28-29 September 2023. The theme of the conference was “Human Rights Law: Prospects, Possibilities, Fears and Limitations”. Alexandra was on a panel focused on Remedies and Enforcement and presented her paper titled “Possibilities and limitations of the inherent power of the court as a tool to secure remedies for human rights violations”. Her presentation addressed the way that courts in Aotearoa New Zealand have used the inherent power of the court to provide remedies for breaches of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBORA), discussing the development of the prima facie rule of exclusion of evidence obtained in breach of NZBORA, Baigent damages, the recognition of ability to exclude evidence obtained in breach of NZBORA in civil proceedings, and the Supreme Court’s recent affirmation of the power of the High Court to issue a declaration of inconsistency pursuant to NZBORA.

• October 2023: Professor David B MacDonald: “Settler State Genocide Recognition and Indigenous Self-Determination: Some Considerations from Canada.”

On 19 October 2023, Te Puna Rangahau o te Wai Ariki / The Aotearoa New Zealand Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law and The New Zealand Centre for Human Rights Law, Policy and Practice co-hosted a public talk by visiting fellow Professor David MacDonald. Professor MacDonald is a professor of political science at the University of Guelph (Canada), a visiting scholar at the School of Law, Waipapa Taumata Rau / University of Auckland, and a fellow at the Aotearoa Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law. He has a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics. He worked previously for the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and is a member of the Royal Commission Forum.