The World Commission on Environment and Development in its 1987 report provided a new analysis of the world’s resource and environmental problems that linked two key ideas: economic growth and sustainability. The report did not predict increasing decay, poverty, and environmental degradation....

New Zealand and Australia’s natural and mutual trust sets their efforts for a closer relationship apart from many other countries. The idea of a common Europe was seen as a solution to bitter conflict which has divided people and nations over several centuries. In North America, the Canadian...

Some statutes are known for the boldness and novelty of their policy. Others for the use of intricate and novel legislative techniques. Some lawyers may admire particular legislative techniques that have no great impact except to implement faithfully the policy of the Act. On the other hand,...

This paper discusses the commercialisation of state trading activities and, in particular, the Government’s view for future directions for state enterprises. New Zealand over the years has developed many different enterprises owned by the state and which are essentially of a commercial or...

The New Zealand government is required to have a policy on every subject at all times. Essentially, the executive government has two fundamental types of activity: developing policy and executing it. There are many different sources of policy, including those in the political system such as...

The consumer movement aims to prevent monopoly and encourage competition. The movement encourages the development of standards to eliminate physical hazards from products which endanger safety. The most perplexing problem is to decide when the market left to itself provides the appropriate means...

In October 1972 the New Zealand Parliament passed the Accident Compensation Act 1972 which establishes the most comprehensive accident compensation scheme ever enacted in the common law world and deals a mortal blow to the traditional tort system of compensating the victims of accidental injury....

This article suggests new ways to make international law for the environment. The existing methods are slow, cumbersome, expensive, uncoordinated and uncertain. Something better must be found if the environmental challenges the world faces are to be dealt with successfully. Unless we devise a...

This paper suggests some of the deeper implications of the climate change debate for both international law and the development of international institutions. The author’s views are based not only on material presented in the symposium, but on his own experience as a New Zealand Government...

Seldom do we stop to ask what is the purpose of Parliament? What are its functions and how does it carry them out? If we do not try and answer these basic questions, Parliament is at risk of failing to focus on its fundamental purposes and functions. The Review of Standing Orders has made...