Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface

Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface explores the intersections between intellectual property and human rights law and policy. The relationship between these two fields has captured the attention of governments, policymakers, and activist communities in a diverse array of international and domestic political and judicial venues. These actors often raise human rights arguments as counterweights to the expansion of intellectual property in areas including freedom of expression, public health, education, privacy, agriculture, and the rights of indigenous peoples. At the same time, the creators and owners of intellectual property are asserting a human rights justification for the expansion of legal protections. The book explores the legal, institutional, and political implications of these competing claims in three ways: (1) by offering a framework for exploring the connections and divergences between these subjects; (2) by identifying the pathways along which jurisprudence, policy, and political discourse are likely to evolve; and (3) by serving as a teaching and learning resource for scholars, activists, and students. This excerpt contains the book\u27s table of contents, preface, and concluding chapter

Essay: Family Law and Civil Union Partnerships - Status, Contract and Access to Symbols

This essay locates New Zealand's civil union legislation within the dynamic between "status" and "contract" that animates modern family law. "Status" concerns who we are; "contract" concerns the transactions we can enter. Because family law is concerned with affective relationships, it cannot apprehend people only as the atomised individuals anticipated by the modernist emphasis on contractual relations. Family law acknowledges the relevance to legal issues of "messy" issues of personality. Among the most complex and powerful aspects of personality with which the law concerns itself is love. Love affects who we are and law affects what love can be. Law provides and constrains the symbolic repertoire that helps organise the way we think about our affective relationships.  The enactment of civil union legislation was an enormously positive step.  However, by continuing to deny homosexuals the ability to marry, the New Zealand state persists in denying homosexuals a key part of the symbolic repertoire that is relevant to the way people in love can conceptualise their relationships. The transactions the state permits us to enter, particularly transactions that are expressions of love, affect the construction of our identities, illustrating once again the deep links that exist between who we are and the contracts we can enter

Valuing Domestic Self-Determination in International Intellectual Property Jurisprudence

In an era of increased globalization of intellectual property law and policy, a key challenge for domestic and international intellectual property law makers will be the balancing of domestic and international concerns. In intellectual property law, the latter are frequently given expression through the principle of territoriality. Professor Austin\u27s Article examines the continued viability of the territoriality principle and the value of domestic self-determination in international intellectual property jurisprudence in both the private and public international law contexts, and discusses ways that the value of domestic self-determination might be balanced with the need for international cooperation in the international intellectual property context. This analysis provides a framework for scrutiny of the Draft Convention on Jurisdiction and Recognition of Judgments in Intellectual Property Matters proposed by Professors Dreyfuss and Ginsburg. Professor Austin explores ways in which the draft convention is and is not consistent with the value of domestic self-determination

Introduction: A Scholarly Snapshot

Graeme W Austin, Associate Dean (Research) and Chair of Private Law, Introduces this 60th Anniversary edition of the Victoria University of Wellington Law Review. He provides a snapshot of a day in the life of the Victoria University of Wellington Law Faculty, focusing on the research activities of his colleagues, and reflects on what this might mean for the future of legal scholarship at Victoria

The Consumer in Cross-Border Passing Off Cases

This article considers Starbucks (HK) Ltd v British Sky Broadcasting Group [2015] UKSC 31 in which the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom held that, for the purposes of the passing off tort, goodwill is strictly territorial. It compares this approach with that of New Zealand cases which have adopted a more flexible approach to the protection of goodwill in the cross-border context. The article suggests that, in some cases, the New Zealand approach will be better adapted to consumer experience in the modern international marketplace

Children's rights in New Zealand law and society

This article explores the various sources of children's rights in New Zealand law. These are found in legislation, common law and international documents. The results of a survey of schools and community agencies dealing with children are contained in the latter part of the article. Very little formal recognition of children's rights is found in school charters and mission statements. Children's rights and children's welfare are often equated. Funding for this project was provided by the New Zealand Law Foundation

From Pedagogy to Property: Copyright in Teaching Materials

Some university intellectual property policies claim the right to use some of the copyright-protected material that has been authored by academics. While the clauses in these policy instruments can vary in detail, the claim to use this material can extend to both traditional scholarly work, such as books and articles, together with teaching materials. This article considers whether the legal foundations for the claim are sound and whether the claim aligns with the characteristics of universities set out in the Education and Training Act 2020

Property on the Line: Life on the Frontier between Copyright and the Public Domain

This article is an edited transcript of Professor Graeme W Austin's Inaugural Lecture, delivered in the Council Chamber of Victoria University of Wellington on 15 November 2012. Professor Austin was appointed Chair in Private Law in the Faculty of Law in November 2010. This lecture explores claims that in copyright law, the public domain is necessarily in opposition to proprietary rights, and suggests that in many contexts the incentives offered by copyright contribute to the vibrancy and volume of material that is available for downstream creativity and innovation. Drawing on his earlier work on the relationship between human rights law and intellectual property, Professor Austin's lecture advances the idea that cognisance of the human rights dimensions of intellectual property, including creators' human rights, should inform our understanding of the appropriate scope of the rights of copyright owners. The lecture concludes with a warning against the "Walmartization" of copyright

The Guts of a Torts Class

As a tribute to Professor Bill Atkin's unswerving dedication to the teaching of the law of torts, this article makes a few personal observations about tort law teaching at Victoria University of Wellington. The article's focus is the craft of so-called Socratic teaching, which, broadly described, involves inviting students to participate in classroom dialogue that scrutinises the quality of judicial reasoning.  The article links that endeavour to the Law School’s obligation to act as a conscience and critic of society, and to its commitment to inculcate values associated with the rule of law.&nbsp