Nin Tomas

Associate Professor
BA, LLB(Hons), PhD Auckland

Contact details
Building 803, room 208
17 Eden Crescent
Auckland

Phone: +64 9 923 8010
Email: n.tomas@auckland.ac.nz

Available to students
Mondays and Wednesdays 2 - 3pm or by appointment

Profile

Nin is tangata whenua, being a member of the Tai Tokerau confederation of iwi and a graduate of Auckland University. Her academic career is grounded in Aotearoa/New Zealand, drawing upon the rich, and largely unrecognised, intellectual contribution Māori society has to make to domestic and international law. Thus, both her teaching and research have a two-fold focus: the English common law as it has developed within European society and is currently being applied in New Zealand and elsewhere, and, the development of a modern system of law based on customary concepts and principles derived from a uniquely Māori worldview. The latter extends beyond the confines of "western" derived systems of "law" and across academic disciplines to explore other cultural and social conceptions of law and how it is implemented. Nin has studied English, Māori, French, Spanish and Hrvatska languages in order to achieve a broader understanding of the linguistic nature of "law" and how it operates in different societies. She often teaches and researches with academics from other Faculties.

Nin is a founding member of Te Tai Haruru (Māori academic staff). She is part of the vanguard of change in NZ law teaching, consciously using and developing indigenous and Māori concepts in her ordinary teaching. She has implemented several successful initiatives aimed at improving Māori student achievement. In 1995, she introduced the annual National Māori Issues Moot, now a highlight for students at the Māori Lawyers’ Association yearly gathering. In 2003, she redesigned the Faculty’s Māori Academic Programme and oversaw its successful implementation in the years 2004-2006. In 2004 she also introduced Te Tai Haruru - The Journal of Māori Legal Writing, as a forum for academic discussion of Māori concepts and principles and their legal application, by students and lecturers. Nin’s PhD Thesis, Key Concepts of Tikanga Māori (Māori Custom Law) in Tai Tokerau past and present, awarded in 2006, is ground breaking research which provides the basis for an indigenous system of modern law in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Nin currently team-teaches the New Zealand component of the Masters paper, "Indigenous Peoples and the Law", by real-time video-conference, with Professors Brad Morse from University of Ottawa; Lindsay Robertson from University of Oklahoma; Margaret Stephenson from University of Queensland and Ruth Thompson from University of Saskatchewan. In 2006, she taught "Indigenous Rights, Public Policy and Conflict Management" with international law expert, Professor James Anaya, in Chile.

In 2006, Nin and Dr Kathryn Lehman gave a joint human rights presentation in English, Spanish and Māori at the International Globalisation, Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples Conference held at the UN South American Headquarters in Santiago, Chile.

Watch the video on Nin's video page

In 2007 she was two of seven "types" (ie. common and indigenous) of internationally chosen lawyers who presented at the inaugural International Law Teachers’ Association Learning from each other: Enriching the Law School Curriculum in an Interrelated World conference at Soochow University, China, and in July 2008 she was a keynote speaker at the New Crowns: New Sovereignties inter-disciplinary conference at Melbourne University.

Nin is an independent commissioner appointed by the Auckland Regional Council to adjudicate hearings under the Resource Management Act. She has sat on a variety of hearings relating to pest eradication in conservation areas containing threatened flora and fauna icon species, mussel farming and property development.

Special Interests

• Comparative Law
• Developing conceptions of "Property" and "ownership"
• Jural principles and their application as "law"

2008 Courses Taught

• Legal Method
• Māori Land Law
• Comparative Indigenous Peoples and the Law

2008 Research Projects

In 2008 Nin was awarded a grant of $175,000, by Nga Pae o te Maramatanga, to lead a team of researchers investigating Nga Tikanga Mate (Māori Burial Customs). The research proposal was prompted by a spate of "body-takings" in 2006-2007 and will compare Māori and Pakeha (European) rules relating to the death and burial of individuals.

2007-2008 Research Supervisions

• Comparing Indigenous Peoples Rights under EU and New Zealand Law
• Affirmative Action Programmes in New Zealand and the US
• Indigenous Rights Developments in International Law
• Comparing the Waitangi Tribunal and Inter-American Court processes
• Commercial Development of Māori Land
• The Basques in Europe
• Can Human Tissue and Genetic Material be Owned?
• How have Aotearoa, Australia and Canada dealt with challenges to Petroleum Resources?
• Sacred Sites Protection: New Zealand, Canadian and Australian Approaches

2008 Publications in progress

• TOMAS, N. "Los derechos del pueblo Māori en Aotearoa/Nueva Zelanda" en Bello, Alvaro y Jose Aylwin, compiladores, Globalización, derechos humanos y pueblos indígenas, Alfabeta, Santiago de Chile, 2008, 202-233.
• TOMAS, N. ‘Ownership of tupapaku’, NZLJ, July 2008, 233-236.
• TOMAS N. Key Concepts of Tikanga Māori (Māori Custom Law) and their Use as Regulators of Human Relationships to Natural Resources in Tai Tokerau - past and present, Ph D Thesis. Huia Publishers, Wellington, New Zealand.
• TOMAS, N (ed), Te Tai Haruru - Journal of Māori Legal Writing. Volume 3.
• TOMAS N. Ownership of Tupapaku - Law v Tikanga.
• TOMAS N. Indigenous Self-Determination - From Woe to Go.
• TOMAS N. Coming Ready or Not - The Emergence of Hapu and Iwi as a Third order of Governance in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Watch videos about Nin's work on Nin Tomas' video page