Nin Tomas Memorial Lectures

• September 2022: Amokura Kawharu ‘Arbitration on the Marae’

In September 2022, Te Wai Ariki hosted the annual Nin Tomas Memorial Lecture on Indigenous Peoples and the Law, delivered by Amokura Kawharu on the topic ‘Arbitration on the Marae’.

Amokura Kawharu (Ngāti Whātua and Ngāpuhi) is the Tumu Whakarae | President of Te Aka Matua o te Ture |The New Zealand Law Commission and a former Associate Professor at the University of Auckland Faculty of Law. Amokura practised commercial law in Auckland and Sydney and then worked in academia, specialising in commercial and investment arbitration, property law and international economic regulation. She is a Barrister of the High Court of New Zealand, a Fellow of the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Amokura has a BA/LLB(Hons) from Auckland University and an LLM from the University of Cambridge.

A written version of the lecture is available here.

• December 2020: Annette Sykes’ ‘The myth of Tikanga in the Pākehā Law’

In December 2020, Te Wai Ariki hosted the annual Nin Tomas Memorial Lecture on Indigenous Peoples and the Law, delivered by leading lawyer and activist Annette Sykes on the topic ‘The myth of Tikanga in the Pākehā Law’.

Annette Sykes is a human rights lawyer specialising in the rights of indigenous peoples to promote their own systems of law and has a strong focus in her career on all aspects of law as they affect Māori especially constitutional change. She has been an active member of the New Zealand Criminal Bar, the Family Courts Association and Te Hunga Rōia Māori, (Māori Law Society) and is an advocate in the specialist jurisdictions of the Waitangi Tribunal, Māori Land Court and Appellate courts as well as the other general courts of New Zealand. Annette is renowned for her activism and protest against the New Zealand government on issues affecting Māori and this has been an active part of her career and community activities. Annette has been practicing law since 1984 and currently has her own law practice in Rotorua, Annette Sykes & Co Ltd where she is from, Ngāti Pikiao and Ngāti Makino of Te Arawa waka with strong whakapapa connections also to Ngāti Awa and Tūhoe.

A recording of the lecture is available here.

Annette’s lecture was published in the 2021 edition of Te Tai Haruru: Journal of Māori and Indigenous Legal Issues is available for free download here:

• August 2019: Professor Val Napolean ‘Gitxsan Legal Personhood of Women and Girls - A Gendered Perspective’

In August 2019, Te Wai Ariki hosted the annual Nin Tomas Memorial Lecture on Indigenous Peoples and the Law, delivered by leading Canadian law professor Val Napolean on the topic ‘Gitxsan Legal Personhood of Women and Girls - A Gendered Perspective’.
Val Napoleon researches and teaches Indigenous legal traditions, legal theories and methodologies, feminisms, citizenship, self-determination, human rights, property (Indigenous/Gitxsan and common law), and governance. Several of her major initiatives include establishing the Indigenous Law Research Unit (ILRU), and the JID/JD (dual law degree) program at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. The ILRU partners with Indigenous people across Canada on Indigenous legal questions (e.g., harms and injuries, governance, dispute resolution, gender and human rights, and lands, water, and resources. Napoleon is from the Saulteau First Nation and was adopted by the House of Luuxhon, Ganada, Gitanyow (northern Gitxsan).

• November 2018: Judge Caren Fox ‘The Role of A Māori Land Court Judge – Stories and Reflections after 18 years’

In November 2018, Te Wai Ariki hosted the annual Nin Tomas Memorial Lecture on Indigenous Peoples and the Law, delivered by Deputy Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court Caren Fox on the topic ‘The Role of A Māori Land Court Judge – Stories and Reflections after 18 years’.

Deputy Chief Judge Caren Fox (nee Wickliffe) was appointed in 2000 as a judge of the Māori Land Court resident in the Tairawhiti and Waiariki districts. She was also appointed as an alternate Environment Court judge in 2009. She was then appointed deputy chief judge of the Māori Land Court in February 2010. Judge Fox has been the presiding officer for numerous historical and contemporary claims in the Waitangi Tribunal – one of which contributed to the Kaingaroa Forest Settlement with the Central North Island Tribes and another led to the first national Aquaculture Treaty Settlement. She is currently the presiding officer for the Porirua ki Manawatu claims.

A specialist in international human rights, Judge Fox was a Harkness Fellow to the USA from 1991 to 1992 and a Pacific Fellow in Human Rights Education employed by the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation from 1997 to 1999. For her work in human rights, she won the New Zealand Human Rights Commission 2000 Millennium Medal.

Judge Fox’s lecture was published in the 2020 edition of Te Tai Haruru: Journal of Māori and Indigenous Legal Issues and is available for free download here. 

• December 2017: Professor Mick Dodson AM ‘Reflections on the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’

In December 2017, Te Wai Ariki hosted the inaugural annual Nin Tomas Memorial Lecture on Indigenous Peoples and the Law, delivered by Australian law professor Mick Dodson AM on the topic ‘Reflections on the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’.

Professor Mick Dodson, a member of the Yawuru peoples, is the current Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies and a Professor in the ANU College of Law at the Australian National University. Professor Dodson has been a prominent advocate for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Indigenous peoples around the world. He participated in the crafting of the text of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; spent six years as a member of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues; was Australia’s fi rst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner; and was counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. In 2009 Professor Dodson was named Australian of the Year by the National Australia Day Council.

The lecture was followed by the launch of Andrew Erueti’s edited collection International Indigenous Rights in Aotearoa New Zealand (VUW Press, 2017).