The year in review from our research centres
Our faculty, including our research centres, produce leading research which create real impact for local, national, and global communities.
New Zealand Centre of International Economic Law (NZCIEL)
NZCIEL is dedicated to producing and mobilising cutting-edge research—what a busy year it’s been!
We welcomed two outstanding researchers to the Centre—Dr Hai-Yuean Tualima and Dr Kushbu Kumari.
Hai-Yuean is an expert in traditional knowledge, intellectual property and customary law, with an emphasis on Pacific legal systems. Having led Pacific delegations on the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources, and associated Traditional Knowledge, she has shaped policy at the highest levels. We are grateful to have had her expertise at the Centre.
Khushbu’s research focuses on patents and pharmaceuticals in India, timely as New Zealand negotiates a free trade agreement with India. Her research on data exclusivity and its impact on India's pharmaceutical sector offers crucial insights.
We continue our commitment to research and collaboration with external partnerships. Dr Nikita Melashchenko and Professor Susy Frankel continue work with the NZ Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (NZPECC) to develop an IP–Services Linkages Toolkit, designed to untangle connections between Intellectual Property and Services.
Professor Albero Costi has been at the forefront of connecting trade law with environmental and social challenges, particularly those facing Pacific communities. His work on climate mobility and food systems has taken him from Rome to Belgium, London and beyond, examining how law and policy can respond to climate-driven displacement and threats to Indigenous food security.
In exciting news, Susy Frankel will be serving as Counsellor in the Intellectual Property, Government Procurement and Competition Division of the World Trade Organization in Geneva, in 2026 and 2027. She'll be working directly with WTO Members to implement and deepen their understanding of the TRIPS Agreement.
As we move into 2026, stay tuned for more updates and keep in touch by subscribing to our mailing list and following us on LinkedIn.
Read the full update from NZCIEL here.
Te Herenga Waka Centre for Justice Innovation
Funded by the Michael and Suzanne Borrin Foundation and the Faculty of Law, the Centre works to provide an independent, evidence-based voice on justice issues, through multidisciplinary research, evaluation, and education.
In 2025 we have been occupied with two major Borrin-funded research projects.
First, we completed data collection for our project on Custodial Remand Before Trial or Sentence, which uses multiple qualitative methods to examine current law and practice relating to bail and remand, the conditions of detention and its impacts, and the possibilities for reform of the law, justice processes, and procedures. We are now writing up the results of this project.
Our second major project concerns Remote Participation in Criminal Proceedings, and investigates when and how remote participation is best used. The first interim report for this project will be available in early 2026.
We have also continued our work and discussions on legal professional wellbeing, the impacts on children of witnessing family violence, and innovative responses to sexual violence. Through our research work, we have been able to support several Forensic Psychology interns, employ research assistants from multiple disciplines across the University, and support early career and Māori and Pasifika researchers.
As well as numerous presentations by our Centre co-directors, our events this year included two notable public lectures, “Where Language Meets Legal Procedure and Investigations”, presented by Associate Professor Corinne Seales, and “Understanding and Responding to Adult Deliberate Firesetting in Aotearoa New Zealand: Challenges and Future Directions” by Dr. Nichola Tyler and Professor Theresa Gannon.
We thank our funders, Advisory Board, Māori Advisory Group members, and our invaluable Centre Manager Anna Burnett and Research Fellow Alexandra Forlong. Many thanks to the students, colleagues, and wider community who have supported and collaborated with us. We also appreciate those in government departments who have managed our requests for information.
We have more planned for 2026. To join our mailing list, email us at CentreForJusticeInnovation@vuw.ac.nz. Please also follow us on LinkedIn and look out for the launch of our new website in early 2026.
Learn more about Te Herenga Waka Centre for Justice Innovation here.
New Zealand Centre for Public Law
Another bumper year of activities for the NZ Centre for Public Law, which kicked off with our regular Government Law—Year in Review event in February. Over 250 folk joined us for updates on developments in the ‘law governing government’, including a panel appraising the coalition’s style of governance. Our 2026 version of this event is planned for 18 February 2026, so keep the date free.
Numerous seminars, roundtables and symposiums followed. We were joined by scholars from Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Buffalo, New South Wales, Waterloo, Oxford, Toronto, Melbourne, and Auckland, along with judicial figures from Canada and South Africa, and government officials from our own capital city. Topics ranged from specialist courts, to administrative law deference, the size of the statute book, peace in international law, to the recognition of Palestine as a State, the business of judging, and much more. We were grateful to share hosting duties with our friends at the School of Government, NZCIEL, UNSW's Centre of Public Law, the International Law Association NZ Branch, NZ Association for Comparative Law, and the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law.
A workshop on constitutional interpretation, jointly convened with Professor Rosalind Dixon (from UNSW), was an especially rich and thought-provoking collaboration, and conversations with Justice Karakatsanis and former Justice Kate O'Regan were very memorable events. Our annual international humanitarian law seminar rounded out the year, including a keynote from Michael A Becker on the International Court of Justice's South Africa v Israel case.
Members of the Centre for Public Law also continue to generate top-notch scholarship on a wide array of government-related topics, instances of which are reported elsewhere in V.Alum.
We—Dr Marnie Lloydd and Professor Dean Knight, as directors of the NZ Centre for Public Law—look forward to continuing our engagement with the public law community into next year and beyond.
As well as the Government Law—Year in Review event in February, we will be co-hosting the annual Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law Conference in Wellington on July 2026, and an ICON.S NZ and Australian Chapter Conference in August 2026.