ProfessorElizabeth Macpherson

Dr Elizabeth Macpherson a Professor of Law and Rutherford Discovery Fellow at the University of Canterbury. 

Elizabeth is a lawyer and interdisciplinary researcher who focuses on the design and implementation of water law and policy in community and justice settings. Her research focuses on the potential for comparative constitutional law, human rights, and Indigenous rights, relationships, and jurisdiction to enable better outcomes in water governance. She has a particular interest in the development of freshwater and marine law and policy in Australasia and the Americas. She has led numerous grants and published widely on freshwater and marine law and policy, especially as they relate to Indigenous peoples’ rights.

Elizabeth is the author of the award-winning book Indigenous Water Rights in Law and Regulation: Lessons from Comparative Experience (2019, Cambridge University Press) and leads a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship programme in partnership with Ngāi Tahu, funded by Te Apārangi The Royal Society of New Zealand, on Blue Carbon Futures in Aotearoa New Zealand: Law, Climate, Resilience. Elizabeth has over twenty years legal and policy experience advising Indigenous peoples and governments on environmental and natural resources law matters.