News Item

12-13 JUNE 2015, UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

The aim of this symposium is to explore how recent developments in international law and State/Extractive Industry practice may improve M?ori engagement with the Extractive Industry through: robust consultation and impact assessment processes; benefit sharing agreements with Extractive Industry; partnership agreements with the Extractive Industry; and iwi-led projects.

The symposium will bring together experts in international law and indigenous rights, and domestic legal issues, and representatives of the Extractive Industry as well as a broad cross-section of M?ori communities who have experience with Extractive Industry.

The Law Foundation is supporting student attendance and bringing keynote speakers to New Zealand.

Proposed keynote speakers:
Professor Marcia Langton, the Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, founding Director of the Centre for Indigenous, Natural and Cultural Resource Management, and the Ranger Chair of Aboriginal Studies at the Northern Territory University. Professor Langton has published extensively on the nature of corporate social responsibility and local, regional and international standards in agreement-making with indigenous people.

Professor Saleem Ali, Director of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM), at the University of Queensland, is committed to expanding the work of CSRM to cover pressing development challenges in extractive economies in partnership with industry and international aid agencies. Professor Ali is an environmental planner whose research and practice is highly interdisciplinary and aims to inform social management with rigorous science. As part of the Sustainable Minerals Institute’s NextMine initiative, he leads the UQ Rare Earths Minerals Consortium — a research effort that brings together international academics, industry practitioners and policy makers to consider ways of applying industrial ecology principles to supply of rare earth minerals worldwide.

Further information about the symposium is now available via the University of Auckland web site.

The Law Foundation is providing funding of up to $9,140 for this event. Up to $5,000 will assist with student attendance, and the balance will go towards bringing the keynote speakers to the conference.