Bicultural perspectives on Māori legal research

Increasingly, legal research projects undertaken at law school or in practice will involve Māori custom law and/or tikanga Māori.' The role of both Māori custom law and tikanga Māori is most evident in the work of the Māori Land Court in the interpretation and application of legislation relating to Māori land. Increasingly, general statutes incorporate Māori principles and values, such as those to be found in the Resource Management Act 1991, or make explicit reference to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The statutory interpretation function of the Courts in relation to these, and less obvious examples, requires knowledge of tikanga Māori and/or Māori custom law. For any analysis of the work of the Courts or of the legislature, knowledge of tikanga Māori and/or custom law is required. Both Māori custom law and tikanga Māori are preserved by and accessed through the oral tradition. In addition to its role in the Courts and in relation to legislation, the most significant role played by the oral tradition is in the work of the Waitangi Tribunal. The oral tradition also plays an increasingly important part in other areas requiring research. What follows is an introduction to the oral tradition and its role in the legal system of Aotearoa/New Zealand. An understanding of the oral tradition is essential to the construction of a research path that is both ethical and effective

Solar hard X-ray halo from decaying neutrons

<p><b>Aims:</b> To quantify the solar X-ray halo resulting from inner bremsstrahlung in beta decay of neutrons generated by cosmic ray bombardment of the solar surface.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> We show analytically how the angular form of this X-ray halo directly reflects the energy distribution of neutrons escaping the Sun. Previous Monte Carlo calculations of solar albedo neutron production are used to normalise an assumed parametric form for the escaping neutron distribution and thus to estimate the halo's intensity. The main remaining assumptions, that neutrons escape radially and that gravitational deceleration may be neglected, affect a negligible fraction of all solar neutrons.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> Observations of this halo would have clear diagnostic interest for cosmic ray propagation in the inner heliosphere. Unfortunately it is unlikely to be observable in competition with the cosmic X-ray background.</p&gt

Dismissal protections in a global market: Lessons to be learned from Serco Ltd v Lawson

The rise of labour as a transnational phenomenon is an aspect of globalisation. New Zealand law relating to protection from dismissal without cause (unjustifiable dismissal) is failing employers and employees whose employment agreements have international elements. In New Zealand, protection from dismissal without cause is contained in the Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA 2000) (NZ). However, the Act is not an ‘overriding statute’. Cases where the facts show the operation of global employment markets are decided according to conflict of laws rules relating to contracts. The operation of these rules can result in employees being inappropriately excluded from New Zealand dismissal protections. The complexity of the rules makes them inappropriate for the resolution of employment relationship problems, to the detriment of both employers and employees

Quantum Interference and Inelastic Scattering in a Model Which-Way Device

A which-way device is one which is designed to detect which of 2 paths is taken by a quantum particle, whether Schr\"odinger's cat is dead or alive. One possible such device is represented by an Aharonov-Bohm ring with a quantum dot on one branch. A charged cantilever or spring is brought close to the dot as a detector of the presence of an electron. The conventional view of such a device is that any change in the state of the cantilever implies a change in the electron state which will in turn destroy the interference effects. In this paper we show that it is in fact possible to change the state of the oscillator while preserving the quantum interference phenomenon.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, Localisation 2002 Toky