Blog – Blue Horizons

The Minister for the Environment, David Parker, has set out a bold programme for environmental law reform.[1] In particular, the reform programme includes amendments to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) designed to prevent further...

Principled approaches to environmental law are much in vogue. The most recent set of principles to emerge onto the world scene pertain to water. They were encapsulated in the Brasilia Declaration of Judges on Water Justice of 21 March 2018. The catalyst for the...

The Minister for Climate Change has launched a bold work programme for the period 2018- regarding climate change that received endorsement from the Cabinet on 18 December 2017.[1] The centre-piece of the programme is the Zero Carbon Bill that is proposed to be...

On 20 August 2017 the then Labour opposition leader, Jacinda Ardern, announced that climate change would be a priority issue if the Labour party was elected to govern New Zealand, stating that “Climate change is my generation’s nuclear-free moment”. Against this...

The recently published papers from “Environmental Adjudication in the 21st Century Symposium” held in Auckland on 12 April 2017 provide the catalyst for an informed discussion about the principles that should underpin an “Environmental Rule of Law”.[1] This discussion...

The Resource Legislation Amendment Act 2017 (RLAA) received Royal assent on 18 April 2017. Billed as the largest statutory reform exercise since the Resource Management Amendment Act 1993, arguably the RLAA is the culmination of a series of incremental amendments to...

The opinion pieces from Melissa Scanlan and Sean Hecht [published in RMB Volume 12 Issue 2] provide timely updates on the Juliana litigation in the USA regarding climate change and current and future generations, and the emerging environmental policy direction of the...

The High Court decision in RJ Davidson Family Trust v Marlborough District Council (Cull J)[1] is important as the first decision from the superior courts to apply the King Salmon approach in a resource consent context.[2] The decision (while subject to further...

For public lawyers the press has been dominated by the decision of the UK Supreme Court in R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC 5. This decision has brought the issue of “judicial constitution-making” sharply into focus.[1] The...

Sometimes its important to know your worth, and the findings of the most recent Ministry of Education survey of tertiary graduate earnings provides interesting reading: Study finds 62% rise in LLB graduate earnings over 7 years A Ministry of Education study on...