Transforming New Zealand’s constitution

We are especially interested in structural change to better realise Māori rights to self-determination.

Our work in this area includes research into constitutions in colonised countries where Indigenous peoples’ aspire to forms of self-determination, rights to the return of lands, territories and resources, cultural rights and equality. Professor Charters has a Royal Society Rutherford Fellowship to devise concrete recommendations for constitutional transformation taking into account learning from elsewhere.

Our people also support constitutional transformation in a myriad of ways be it in their involvement in the larger social movement, working with NGOs, on government-appointed working groups, advocacy at the United Nations or in the Waitangi Tribunal and before New Zealand courts.
 

Dr Claire Charters addressed the Trilateral Working Group on Violence Against Indigenous Women, Girls and Gender Diverse People in Mexico City on 3 September 2024. She covered the roles of women within te ao Māori, the impacts of colonisation on the self-determination of Indigenous women, recent assessments of Aotearoa New Zealand's human rights obligations towards Indigenous women, a global international perspective on responding to violence against Indigenous women, and recommendations.

Claire Charters spoke at the opening plenary conversation of the International Society on Public Law Conference on 29 August 2024. She covered her ongoing Rutherford research into comparative constitutional transformation, analysing international examples of constitutional protections of Indigenous peoples' rights in areas including the United States, Canada, Vanuatu and Chile. Claire also looked at challenges in bringing these international lessons to the Aotearoa New Zealand context.

The Mapping the Movement wānanga was a space for people working across different projects to meet and share the whakapapa, opportunities, and barriers with their mahi in the movement and seek ways to tautoko and collaborate with each other for constitutional transformation.

This paper presents Te Puna Rangahau o te Wai Ariki's submission regarding New Zealand's fifth periodic report on implementing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), critically analysing the insufficient constitutional protections of these rights with particular focus on impacts for Māori. Te Wai Ariki argues that despite ratifying international human rights treaties, New Zealand's domestic incorporation remains weak, as ICESCR rights lack constitutional entrenchment and cannot be enforced when Parliament overrides them. The submission highlights specific concerns regarding Māori rights to self-determination, equitable working conditions, healthcare, and housing, while criticising the government's misrepresentation of its actions regarding Te Tiriti o Waitangi and recommending full constitutional incorporation of ICESCR rights to address the disproportionate vulnerability of Māori.

This report is a speech by Prof Claire Charters entitled,  State Constitutions and Indigenous Peoples: Some Preliminary Observations from a Global Review, which she presented at the Global Constitutionalism Conference in Austin, Texas on 20 – 22 March 2025.

Mahuta ake I te pae | Designing Our Constitution 2024 was a conference held in memory of Dr Moana Jackson, to continue the conversations sparked by his work on the landmark report of Matike Mai Aotearoa. The conference focused on identifying practical steps towards designing an inclusive constitution for Aotearoa based on tikanga and kawa, He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and human rights.

Te Wai Ariki convened the Constitutional Kōrero conference on 21-23 November 2022, bringing together experts from around Aotearoa New Zealand and the world to discuss constitutional transformation from an Indigenous perspective, and how to reform Aotearoa New Zealand’s current constitutional arrangements to better realise Māori aspirations for tino rangatiratanga.