On the 4th of September, New Zealand’s South Island was rocked by a 7.1 earthquake centered on an unknown fault under the Canterbury Plains. This “Darfield” quake sat in motion a serious of earthquakes that devastated the city of Christchurch. The worst of these occurred on February 22nd of 2011 and killed over 180 people. The cost of this quake and subsequent seismic events has been huge, leaving both emotional and economic scars on the Canterbury landscape. However these events have also had a constitutional and political impact that may yet be more lasting.

The response of the New Zealand government has been to centralize control of the Canterbury recovery through the creation of a powerful Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority under the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011 (CERA). This Act has seen power shift away from local bodies towards a central authority and includes an attempt to avoid judicial oversight of these actions.

This lecture explores the political and legal impacts of the Canterbury quake and argues that the Canterbury experience is a salutary tale on the fate of democracy and the rule of law in times of crisis. Dr. John Hopkins is an Associate Professor at the Law School, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He researches in the area of the Public Law and was one of a number of senior academics who signed an open letter expressing concern at the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act in 2010. He is currently involved in number of comparative projects examining legal and constitutional responses to natural disasters.

Please RSVP by Monday, February 27, 2012.

A light lunch will be available.

Dr. Hopkins is a New Zealand Fulbright Scholar and is teaching a course for the Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies during the spring 2012 semester.