Petra Butler

Dr Petra Butler

Associate Professor
School of Law
address

LLM Well, Dr Jur Gött

Profile

Petra specialises in human rights, comparative and private international law. She has worked at the Universities of Göttingen and Speyer (Germany) and was a clerk at the South African Constitutional Court. Before joining Victoria, she worked for the Ministry of Justice's Bill of Rights/Human Rights Team. In 2004, Petra taught international commercial contract and private international law at the Chinese University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, and won a Holgate Fellowship from Grey College, Durham University. Petra was a member of the National Advisory Council to the Human Rights Commission for the National Plan of Action for Human Rights. Petra has advised numerous Government departments and barristers on human rights issues. In 2008 she held a Senior Fellowship at the University of Melbourne where she taught in the LLM programme.

Areas of Supervision (PhD and LLM)

• Constitutional Law
• Comparative Law (public and private)
• Human Rights
• Conflict of Laws
• CISG

Current Research

Petra is conducting research in both her research platforms (human rights and CISG) as follows:

1. No Need for a Right to Privacy in New Zealand?

At the end of August 2011 the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 will celebrate its 21st birthday. In recent years a debate has developed in regard to the deficiencies of the 1990 Act. In my view one of those deficiencies is that the Act does not contain a right to privacy as encompassed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This lacuna was deliberate when the Act was enacted in 1990. The research looks at how the legal landscape would change if a right to privacy were added to the Act. The article will be published (after a reviewing process) as part of the symposium proceedings “The New Zealand Bill of Rights’ 21st Birthday” in a monograph published by Victoria University Law Review and the New Zealand Journal of Public and International Law.

2. The Influence of the UK Human Rights Act 1998 on the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and vice versa.

This research looks how the UK Human Rights Act 1998 and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 jurisprudence have influenced each other. The article will be published (after it has been refereed) in a book of essays funded by the British Academy, Rights protection under the UK’s statutory bill of rights: constitutional and comparative perspectives, Roger Masterman/Ian Leigh (eds).

3. Human Rights and Regulatory Reform

This paper is part of the Regulatory Reform Project, funded by the New Zealand Law Foundation. The project is funded in excess of NZ$2 million and brings together an interdisciplinary and international team of researchers and research institutions. Further, the research project works closely together with practitioners from the legal profession and the Government. My paper examines the role of human rights in the regulatory reform process. The first stage of this paper is completed and awaits its refereeing process. The paper will be published as part of the Project.

4. New Zealand and the CISG

New Zealand adopted the Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) in 1994. My article will review the impact of the CISG in New Zealand in a book of essays on the CISG (editor Larry Di Matteo, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2012). Other contributors are among the most highly regarded practitioners and commentators on the CISG (eg Ulrich Schroeter, Stefan Kroell, Loukas Mistelis).

5. CISG and Arbitration- A fruitful Marriage

This paper will explore whether there is a qualitative difference in the understanding and application of the CISG as between international arbitral panel on the one hand and national courts on the other. Article 7(1) CISG states that when interpreting the CISG regard is to be had to its international character, the aim of promoting uniformity in its application, and the observance of good faith in international trade. The international character of the CISG requires the court or arbitral tribunal to avoid interpreting the CISG based on rules of interpretation found in domestic laws. Accordingly, national concepts and approaches should not play a role in the interpretation of the CISG. Rather, uniformity in the application of the CISG-based on its autonomous meaning- is the ultimate goal.

In light of these basic rules and aims, the hypothesis of this paper is that international arbitral tribunals should be better equipped to deliver decisions that reflect the autonomous meaning of the CISG. However, it will explore whether institutional factors may in fact result in national courts doing a better job. The paper will be presented at the Work-in-Progress conference at the University of Missouri’s Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution (US leading centre in dispute resolution) in October this year.

6. Festschrift Professor Ruessmann- The CISG-A unifying Force?

To be asked to contribute to a Festschrift for a German academic is a great honour. It means one has achieved standing within the legal community. Professor Ruessmann is an expert in the area of the CISG and international arbitration. The Festschrift celebrates his 70th birthday in 2013. My Festschrift contribution will examine whether the CISG had a unifying effect in the area of sales law.>

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