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LEAD Projects

27 August 2024

The Institute of Law, Emergencies and Disasters (LEAD) is involved in a number of research projects related to legal perspectives of hazards, emergencies, and disasters. From smart cities to disaster response law, learn more about current and past LEAD projects.

HOW TO APPLY

Current Projects

Funder:

Lead Researchers:

Annick Masselot, Silke Clausing (Research associate)

Project description:

This project is concerned with the impact of earthquakes and other natural disasters on family relationships/individual vulnerability within a family and their legal protection in three comparable jurisdictions in the Pacific region.It will focus on two critical aspects impacting parents and families during and following disasters: Firstly, the extent to which the legal framework and policies take into account parentalcaregivingresponsibilities, and secondly, their alignment with international experience which indicates an increase in family violence following disasters. As both areasdisproportionallyaffect women, the projectwill beunderpinned by gender perspectives.

Funder:

LEAD Researchers:

James Meaghan and Laura Johnstone

Project Desription:

The project considers how the New Ҷֱ Police responded to, and learned from, the 2010/2011 Canterbury Earthquake sequence. It considers the immediate emergency response to the disaster and the short and medium term recovery arising from the earthquake sequence. This aim is to inform the long-term planning that goes into ensuring policing can improve for future disasters, including both seismic events and other “natural” hazards. This is particularly relevant given the increasingly vulnerability of Aotearoa New Ҷֱ in the face of climate change.

Funder:

LEAD Researcher:

Toni Collins

Project Description:

This project will examine dispute resolution in the wake of Canterbury earthquakes to ascertain both best practice and problematic systemic issues. Anecdotal evidence from practitioners, government reports and small-scale research (as well as media reports) suggests a fundamental inability of dispute resolution mechanisms in Aotearoa New Ҷֱ to cope in times of disaster. Similar experiences have been seen in the wake of the COVID response. This relates to lack of resilience in the dispute resolution models adopted leading to a reactionary response which led to multiple and varied approaches. This relates particularly to the issue of residential disputes and the impacts they have on mental health and long-term recovery (linking with projects planned with IP3).

This project will look at the dispute resolution sector as a whole, including Courts, Tribunals and bespoke entities established to address particular sectors (e.g., Canterbury Earthquakes Insurance Tribunals) as well as equivalent overseas models to understand the challenges and their potential resolution in post-earthquake (and other) disaster situations. The conclusion will provide policy recommendations for improving post-earthquake resilience in the sector as well as reducing the need for dispute resolution by improve mechanisms for channelling expectations.

Funders:

  • (DEVORA)

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins and Thomas Wilson

Project Description:
Building upon existing work in the field, this project will examine the resilience of New Ҷֱ’s legal and constitutional framework in the wake an Auckland Volcanic Field Eruption. The project will utilise scenarios developed by the DEVORA research programme, assess the ability of the current structures to deal with such an event and consider how such structures could be further developed to increase their resilience. Working alongside DEVORA stakeholders (including Auckland Council), the project aims to provide not only a better understanding of the specific issue of volcanic risk to the legal framework (and thus effective response and recovery) but more generally expand our knowledge of disaster law and governance in a New Ҷֱ context. The project is being undertaken by Holly Faulkner via a funded PhD scholarship.

Funder:
(Strategic Fund)

Lead Researchers:
Annick Masselot, Roxy Matheson (student)

Project Description:
Gender-based violence law in the midst of earthquakes.

Funder:
(Strategic Funding)

Lead Researchers:
Annick Masselot, Toni Collins, Beatrice (Bea) Holman (PhD student)

Project Description:
Bea is conducting a PhD scholarship relating to women’s employment and disasters.

Completed Projects

Lead Researcher:
Natalie Baird

UC UPC Submission Group:
Erin Gough, Andrew Pullar, Christy Pullyn, Jennifer Sangaroonthong, Sara Tan and Joy Twemlow (LLB Students)

Year:
2013

Project Description:
Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Human Rights Impacts of the Earthquakes.

Funder:
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins, Finau Leveni, Leticia Smith and Holly Faulkner

Project Description:
Pacific Island Countries are extremely vulnerable to climate change and natural hazards; the region hosts five of the ten most at-risk countries in the world. As such, it is critical that domestic laws and policies provide clear rules of the road to guide national and international humanitarian efforts. The project examined the legal preparedness for international disaster assistance across the 16 English-speaking member states of the Pacific islands Forum and provides an assessment of domestic disaster risk management arrangements against the ‘Guidelines for the domestic facilitation and regulation of international disaster relief and initial recovery assistance’ (IDRL guidelines) as promulgated by the IFRC and accepted by all UN member states as the key measurement in its assessment. The complete work is freely available online via the.

Funder:
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins, Finau Leveni, Leticia Smith and Holly Faulkner

Project Description:
Pacific Island Countries are extremely vulnerable to climate change and natural hazards; the region hosts five of the ten most at-risk countries in the world. As such, it is critical that domestic laws and policies provide clear rules of the road to guide national and international humanitarian efforts. The project examined the legal preparedness for international disaster assistance across the 16 English-speaking member states of the Pacific islands Forum and provides an assessment of domestic disaster risk management arrangements against the ‘Guidelines for the domestic facilitation and regulation of international disaster relief and initial recovery assistance’ (IDRL guidelines) as promulgated by the IFRC and accepted by all UN member states as the key measurement in its assessment. The complete work is freely available online via the.

Funder:
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins, Finau Leveni, Leticia Smith and Holly Faulkner

Project Description:
Pacific Island Countries are extremely vulnerable to climate change and natural hazards; the region hosts five of the ten most at-risk countries in the world. As such, it is critical that domestic laws and policies provide clear rules of the road to guide national and international humanitarian efforts. The project examined the legal preparedness for international disaster assistance across the 16 English-speaking member states of the Pacific islands Forum and provides an assessment of domestic disaster risk management arrangements against the ‘Guidelines for the domestic facilitation and regulation of international disaster relief and initial recovery assistance’ (IDRL guidelines) as promulgated by the IFRC and accepted by all UN member states as the key measurement in its assessment. The complete work is freely available online via the.

Funder:
Santander Fellowship

Lead Researchers:
Annick Masselot (in collaboration with Roberta Gurrina, University of Surrey, UK)

Year:
2016 - 2017

Funder:
, European Commission

Lead Researchers:
Annick Masselot, G. Taylor and Dr. K Vadura

Awarded the 2014 RISK Award for the best project proposal for disaster prevention in 2014 by the Global Risk Forum, Davos, UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (ISDR) and the Munich Re Foundation from Knowledge to Action.

Funders:
Earthquake Commission

Lead Researcher: Toni Collins (in collaboration with)

Project Description:
Organisations have a number of regulatory obligations to protect their employees and other stakeholders, such as those in the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA). The HSWA has a core purpose to “protect workers and other persons against harm to their health, safety, and welfare by eliminating or minimising risks arising from work….”. On the surface, the legislation is well placed to promote seismic risk reduction activities, however we currently have little understanding of how organisations interpret and act on obligations within the HSWA to reduce seismic risk. Understanding the obligations imposed by current legislation, as well as how legislation is interpreted and acted upon by organisations, will help us to determine:

  1. The potential impact of legislation influencing disaster risk reduction behaviours; and
  2. How legislative levers could be better utilised to encourage preparedness and reduce economic loss and injury following natural hazard events.

Read the final report.

  • Eve Boister "Legal Options for the Resolution of Abandoned Buildings and Sites Post-Christchurch Earthquake" (2021)

Joint Projects with the Urban Resilience Cluster (CuRE):

  • Alise Winter "Exploring the Role of insurance in Climate Change Adaption" (2021)
  • Tylan Collins "Estimating the Threat of Sea Level Rise to people Over the Next 100 Years" (2021)
  • Sam Paquier "Reviewing and Building on Existing Approaches for Climate Change Adaption Planning" (2021)

Funders:
QuakeCoRE Strategic Project

Lead Researcher:
Natalie Baird

Date:
2018 - 2020

Project Description:
The project examined two preliminary Canterbury-based case studies of Human Rights in the context of disaster:

  1. “Disasters, Human Rights and Vulnerability: Reflections from the Experiences of Older Persons in Post-Quake Canterbury”;
  2. “Remedies for Human Rights Violations in Post-Quake Canterbury: the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises”

Funder:
(Flagship 3)

Lead Researchers:
John Hopkins, Toni Collins, Cameron Eade and Holly Faulkner

Project Description:
The project provides an assessment of the current regulatory environment and the level of building stock resilience the system is likely to deliver, with a focus on multi-storey, multi-occupancy buildings in the Wellington CBD. The project aims to other aspects of QuakeCoRE’s research programmes to provide an overall regulatory map. On the basis of this, the Wellington Case Study project will incorporate comparative understandings from overseas examples, particularly focussing on intensively developed CBDs with similar regulatory models with a view to providing future directions for seismic regulation.

Funder:

UC School of Law Research Fund

Lead Researchers:

Elizabeth ToomeyandToni Collins, in collaboration with Emily Walton (Wynn Williams)

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