Faculty of Law

Natalie is a Professor in the Faculty of Law | Te Kaupeka Ture at the University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha.

Natalie's research and teaching interests are in the areas of international human rights, disaster law, refugee law and Pacific legal studies - all broadly under the public law umbrella. The first part of Natalie's career was spent in the New Zealand public service including at the Crown Law Office, the Cabinet Office (Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet) and the Law Commission. She also worked as a VSA volunteer at the Cambodian Defenders' Project in Phnom Penh. Natalie draws on all this expertise and experience in both her research and teaching.

Natalie is passionate and experienced in all levels of university learning and teaching – from first-year to post-graduate. She is currently the Co-Director of Postgraduate Studies in Law, and a member of the Law Faculty’s Leadership Team. Natalie has a strong personal service ethic, with much of her service reflecting the themes of equity and diversity including past governance roles with Trade Aid New Zealand and Amnesty International. Natalie is currently a part-time member of the Human Rights Review Tribunal | Te Taraipiunara Mana Tangata.

Dr Barber teaches in the areas of contract law and commercial law, including on the sale of goods, fair trading and consumer guarantees. He researches mainly on the law of contract, particularly on issues in contract formation, construction and damages. He is a co-author of the recent editions of Burrows, Finn and Todd on the Law of Contract in New Zealand, is the Consulting Editor of and contributor to Commercial Law in New Zealand, and a contributor to the Laws of New Zealand.

Applications of Social Ecological Systems theory and methods in the Disaster Risk Governance context. The active management of tensions endemic to cross-sector collaborations in disaster risk management, response and recovery contexts, with a special interest in the use of boundary organizations and collaborative governance to manage institutional misalignments between scientific and other domains. The use of collaborative governance arrangements to improve the research quality and relevance of national research funding programs, and - in response and recovery environments - to enhance cross-sector coordination and decrease ethical risks to impacted communities. Community resilience to natural hazards.

Bill’s academic interests include criminal law and justice systems, Pacific criminology, and drugs. His work examines how Pacific justice systems respond to crime, with particular focus on the interaction between state law, customary law, and local context. 

Associate Professor Dr Toni Collins is a specialist in land law and disaster law, with a research focus on how legal frameworks respond to major earthquake and other natural hazard events and other forms of disruption. Her work examines the resilience of legal systems to disasters and the effectiveness of contractual obligations, risk allocation mechanisms, and statutory interventions in supporting post-disaster recovery.

Toni’s PhD analysed the impacts of the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquakes on commercial landlords and tenants, offering new insights into how these relationships operate under seismic stress. Her current research extends this analysis to the 2016 Kaikōura and Wellington earthquakes, the 2023 Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle and more recently the impacts of sea level rise through climate change tracing how communities and regions are supported (or not) through legal preparedness.

Her broader interests include disaster recovery law, emergency management law, land system resilience, and the interface between land law and risk governance. Toni teaches Land Law at UC, at both introductory and advanced levels integrating contemporary case studies and disaster-related legal challenges to support students’ understanding of how the law functions in real-world contexts.

Key words: disaster, resilience, legal frameworks, legal preparedness

Rachael is a legal scholar with an interest in the rangatiratanga and kāwanatanga spheres, and how they share power. She has whakapapa to Ngāti Tama (Taranaki) and Ngāti Pamoana (Whanganui), and pakeha settler ancestry. Rachael teaches into Legal System, Te Tiriti, Natural Resources Law and Public Law. She is the Ngāi Tahu Centre representative to the Faculty. Rachael's research areas include indigenous taxation and infrastructure projects, the intersection of tikanga Māori and common law, disaster law and indigenous peoples, and law reform relating to cults and high-control religious groups. 

Dr Mark Hanna is a socio-legal scholar whose work focuses on freedom of expression, defamation, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), and the use of private litigation to deter or silence participation in public debate. His work has been published in leading journals such as the Journal of Law and Society, the German Law Journal, the Law Quarterly Review, the Journal of Media Law, and the American Journal of Legal History. You can read his recently published study on 'SLAPPs in Aotearoa New Zealand' here Full article: SLAPPs in Aotearoa New Zealand. His current research examines reputation management and defamation law in a comparative context.

Mark joined the University of Canterbury in December 2023, having previously held positions at Durham University (Assistant Professor in Media Law), Queen’s University Belfast (Lecturer in Torts), and The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands (Lecturer in International Law). He completed his PhD in international law at Queen Mary University of London and has been a visiting scholar at universities at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and the East China University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai. 

He has provided expert advice on defamation, SLAPPs and related litigation to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the UK Ministry of Justice, the Irish Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, and Te Kura Kaiwhakawā | Institute of Judicial Studies. He is the Director of the SLAPPs Research Group, an independent global network of researchers and practitioners working on SLAPPs and anti‑SLAPP reform.

Professor John Hopkins is a comparative public lawyer specialising in disaster law, emergency management law, multi-level governance, administrative justice, and anti-corruption. He is the Director of the LEAD Institute for Law, Emergencies and Disasters at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha University of Canterbury, and Co-Lead of Disciplinary Theme 3 (Law, Planning and Economics) for the NZ Centre for Earthquake Resilience Te Hiranga Rū (QuakeCoRE). He also chairs the International Disaster, Emergency and Law Networks (IDEAL) and serves as Pacific Editor of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law.

His research focuses on disaster risk reduction, emergency powers, crisis governance, resilience policy, and legal frameworks for natural hazards across Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific. Dr Hopkins has lead major projects funded by Resilience to Nature’s Challenges, NHC-Toka Tū Ake (The NZ Hazards Commission), DEVORA (Determining Volcanic Risk in Auckland), the United Nations and the IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) Disaster Law Programme, advancing evidence-based approaches to urban resilience, volcanic risk, and earthquake governance.

In anti-corruption law, John specialises in Pacific governance, money laundering, and regional integrity systems. His recent work with Dr Chat Nguyen, in collaboration with Transparency International New Zealand (TINZ), examines the links between corruption, financial crime, and regulatory capacity in the South Pacific. Dr Hopkins is a former Board member of TINZ.

His earlier scholarship on European regionalism, devolved governance, and comparative constitutional systems remains widely cited and his still regularly contributed to this field. He continues to publish on comparative law, constitutional law, administrative law, international law, and public sector accountability both in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand and globally.

John has held visiting positions at Georgetown University (NZ Fulbright Scholar), Central European University (MUNDUS-MAPP Scholar), the University of Primorska (KEENZ Scholar), and the University of Oxford (Canterbury Scholar). He was elected to the International Academy of Comparative Law in 2013 and is the current New Zealand Chair of the Australasian Law Academics Association.

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.