AUT - Law
Law
The legal system is part of the framework for all business activity. New demands are placed on business as governments expect greater responsibility by organisations for legal compliance in their workplace and operations. This means that business must identify new legal standards as the law changes and determine suitable policies and practices for meeting those legal requirements – for example, in workplace safety, privacy and consumer transactions and fair-trading.
Under the academic leadership of Professor Ian Eagles, the Law discipline in the Faculty of Business and Law seeks to encompass the traditional aspects of commercial law, but within the context of an understanding of the broader socio-legal environment. We have particular strength in the areas of e-commerce law, financial securitization, intellectual property law, marketing law, environmental law, immigration law, and constitutional law. Taxation is a sub-discipline and taxation law and policy is a particular strength.
Major recent achievements within the discipline have included the publication of A Constitutional History of the New Zealand Monarchy (VDM, 2008), by Professor Noel Cox. This is the first scholarly study of the “permanent” part of the executive government of New Zealand, and is the outcome of a decade’s research.
Research
Examples of recent past research include Noel Cox, “The Royal Prerogative in the Realms” (2007) 33(4) Commonwealth Law Bulletin 611-638, Louise Longdin, “Cross Border Market Segmentation and Price Discrimination: Copyright and Competition at Odds”, in F. MacMillan (ed), New Directions In Copyright Law (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, 2007) 125-159, and Pam Nuttall, “There and back again: Shaping the employment contract in the Antipodes” (2007) 13(1) International Employment Relations Review 43-55 .
Discipline members’ research has appeared in top international journals such as the New Zealand Journal of Taxation and Policy, Statute Law Review, Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal, Manitoba Law Journal, and the Australian Intellectual Property Journal.
Professor Ohms has written and edited works on taxation law and policy, especially in the area of tax avoidance. Professor Cox has published in the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Japan and New Zealand, principally in the area of the constitutional aspects of technology, and socio-legal paradigms. Professors Eagles and Longdin specialize in intellectual property and competition law.
Current research include the definition of taxable income under the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, constitutional modeling, and developments in copyright law. Professor Cox’s Church and State in the Post-Colonial Era: The Anglican Church and the Constitution in New Zealand, the first book looking at the relationship of Church and State in New Zealand from a legal perspective, will be published later in 2008.
For more information on Law discipline members’ research click on staff names in the list below, or contact Professor Eagles.
Law Discipline
Professor Noel Cox
Nick Drake
Professor Ian Eagles, Dean of Law School
Mike French
Dr Ranjana Gupta
Professor Louise Longdin
Dennis Moodley
Professor Chris Ohms
Vernon Rive
Associated academic staff
Patricia Grant
Juliet Hyatt
Pheh Hoon Lim
Pamela Nuttall
Felicity Reid
Hermann Retzlaff