scholarly journals Tort Law and Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Bonython
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Judicial Lawmaking ◽  
Ultimate Outcome

Tort law presents doctrinal barriers to plaintiffs seeking remedies for climate change harms in common law jurisdictions. However, litigants are likely to persist in pursuing tortious causes of action in the absence of persuasive policy and regulatory alternatives. Ongoing litigation in Smith v Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd in New Zealand and Sharma v Minister for Environment in Australia highlights tensions between torts doctrine and climate change litigation in both countries. Regardless of its ultimate outcome, that litigation provides a valuable opportunity to integrate theoretical questions about the legitimacy of judicial lawmaking, and intersectional critical legal perspectives, into the teaching of torts. 

scholarly journals Climate Change Adaptation in the Environment Court: Revisiting the 2010 Holt Case

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 609
Author(s):  
CJ Iorns Magallanes ◽  
MJ Dicken
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Coastal Area ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand

Common law precedents for some resource consent approvals in Aotearoa New Zealand are out of date due to the rapid increase in the science and understanding of the effects of climate change. This article considers one 2010 Environment Court case on a resource consent for building in the coastal area. It examines how the case would be decided if it arose today, with the benefit of the relevant law, policies and guidance now available to decision-makers. It suggests that the option taken by the Court in 2010, whereby the owners assumed the relevant inundation risks, would not be so available to a court today. This case is thus no longer good law.

Torts and Other Wrongs

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
John Gardner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Common Cause ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

This chapter focuses on the law of torts, not in the United States, but in other major common law jurisdictions (England and Wales, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) in which tort cases are normally adjudicated by judges sitting without juries. It considers the so-called classical interpretation of the common law of torts by John Goldberg and Ben Zipursky, and how they tend to equivocate on an important point of law in a way that puts them at odds with some writers with whom they would do better to make common cause. It suggests that this equivocation is where the law of the United States parts company with the law in the rest of the common law world. The problem, an English lawyer might then teasingly say, is with American tort law rather than with the Goldberg and Zipursky rendition of it.

scholarly journals VAGUENESS, AUTONOMY, AND R V BROWN

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Arnold
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

This article comments on the article in this volume entitled ‘Is Society Still Shackled with the Chains of a 1993 England?: Consent, Sado-masochism and R v Brown’ by Jordan Moulds. It argues that the defence of consent should not be circumscribed to the extent that it was in Brown for three reasons: the first is based on maintaining the coherence of the law; the second arises from the importance of valuing the liberty of individuals in cases where a statute is vague; and the third is found in the value of autonomy. This comment argues in Part I that the criminal law and tort law should set the same threshold at which consent will no longer afford a defence. Part II draws on the theories of Raz, Fuller and Marmor argues that the liberty of individuals should not be so easily sacrificed where the statute allegedly governing the impugned behaviour is vague; and Part III concludes that the common law position on consent in New Zealand serves as an example of an acceptable balance between the autonomy of the victim and the role that the criminal law has to play in reducing threats to peace and order. 

Harris v Fitzherbert: Customary Rights of Labour on a Shore Whaling Station

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 639
Author(s):  
Stuart Anderson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Customary Rights

This note considers an early adaptation of common law to conditions on New Zealand whaling stations, made relatively easy by the law's prior acceptance of local custom or usage as a determinant of legal rights. The case, Harris v Fitzherbert from 1843, is significant also for the jury's acceptance of a manual workers' construction of the rule over financiers.

ON REGIONAL MODEL SIMULATIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE OVER NEW ZEALAND

1999 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renwick ◽  
Katzfey ◽  
McGregor ◽  
Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Regional Model ◽  
Model Simulations

scholarly journals Complete genomes of two extinct New Zealand passerines show responses to climate fluctuations but no evidence for genomic erosion prior to extinction

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (9) ◽  
pp. 20190491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Dussex ◽  
Johanna von Seth ◽  
Michael Knapp ◽  
Olga Kardailsky ◽  
Bruce C. Robertson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Oceanic Islands ◽  
Genomic Diversity ◽  
Climate Fluctuations ◽  
Forest Clearing ◽  
Mammalian Predators ◽  
Demographic Trajectories ◽  
Human Climate

Human intervention, pre-human climate change (or a combination of both), as well as genetic effects, contribute to species extinctions. While many species from oceanic islands have gone extinct due to direct human impacts, the effects of pre-human climate change and human settlement on the genomic diversity of insular species and the role that loss of genomic diversity played in their extinctions remains largely unexplored. To address this question, we sequenced whole genomes of two extinct New Zealand passerines, the huia ( Heteralocha acutirostris ) and South Island kōkako ( Callaeas cinereus ). Both species showed similar demographic trajectories throughout the Pleistocene. However, the South Island kōkako continued to decline after the last glaciation, while the huia experienced some recovery. Moreover, there was no indication of inbreeding resulting from recent mating among closely related individuals in either species. This latter result indicates that population fragmentation associated with forest clearing by Maōri may not have been strong enough to lead to an increase in inbreeding and exposure to genomic erosion. While genomic erosion may not have directly contributed to their extinctions, further habitat fragmentation and the introduction of mammalian predators by Europeans may have been an important driver of extinction in huia and South Island kōkako.

scholarly journals Zero Carbon Building Practices in Aotearoa New Zealand

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (15) ◽  
pp. 4455
Author(s):  
Thao Thi Phuong Bui ◽  
Suzanne Wilkinson ◽  
Niluka Domingo ◽  
Casimir MacGregor
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Building Projects ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Zero Carbon

In the light of climate change, the drive for zero carbon buildings is known as one response to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Within New Zealand, research on climate change mitigation and environmental impacts of buildings has received renewed attention. However, there has been no detailed investigation of zero carbon building practices. This paper undertakes an exploratory study through the use of semi-structured interviews with government representatives and construction industry experts to examine how the New Zealand construction industry plans and implements zero carbon buildings. The results show that New Zealand’s construction industry is in the early stage of transiting to a net-zero carbon built environment. Key actions to date are focused on devising a way for the industry to develop and deliver zero carbon building projects. Central and local governments play a leading role in driving zero carbon initiatives. Leading construction firms intend to maximise the carbon reduction in building projects by developing a roadmap to achieve the carbon target by 2050 and rethinking the way of designing and constructing buildings. The research results provide an insight into the initial practices and policy implications for the uptake of zero carbon buildings in Aotearoa New Zealand.

scholarly journals CODIFICATION, CONSOLIDATION, RESTATEMENT? HOW BEST TO SYSTEMISE THE MODERN LAW OF TORT

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-305
Author(s):  
Paula Giliker
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
The Law ◽  
Codal Provisions ◽  
Code Civil

AbstractThe law of tort (or extra or non-contractual liability) has been criticised for being imprecise and lacking coherence. Legal systems have sought to systemise its rules in a number of ways. While civil law systems generally place tort law in a civil code, common law systems have favoured case-law development supported by limited statutory intervention consolidating existing legal rules. In both systems, case law plays a significant role in maintaining the flexibility and adaptability of the law. This article will examine, comparatively, different means of systemising the law of tort, contrasting civil law codification (taking the example of recent French proposals to update the tort provisions of the Code civil) with common law statutory consolidation and case-law intervention (using examples taken from English and Australian law). In examining the degree to which these formal means of systemisation are capable of improving the accessibility, intelligibility, clarity and predictability of the law of tort, it will also address the role played by informal sources, be they ambitious restatements of law or other means. It will be argued that given the nature of tort law, at best, any form of systemisation (be it formal or informal) can only seek to minimise any lack of precision and coherence. However, as this comparative study shows, further steps are needed, both in updating outdated codal provisions and rethinking the type of legal scholarship that might best assist the courts.

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