Rate My Professor Jacinta Ruru

Her research focuses on Tikanga Māori and Indigenous laws, encompassing Indigenous Peoples' legal rights, interests, and responsibilities for lands including national parks, waterbodies, and Māori land law under Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She advocates for decolonising legal education and research, legal personality for the environment, and integrating mātauranga Māori into law. With over 100 publications, key works include Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies (Oxford University Press, 2010, co-authored), Ngā Kete Mātauranga: Māori Scholars at the Research Interface (Otago University Press, 2021, co-edited), Listening to Papatūānuku: a call to reform water law (Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 2018), and Giving Voice to Rivers (Australian Indigenous Law Review, 2010). Awards include the Prime Minister’s Supreme Award for Excellence in Tertiary Teaching (2016), University of Otago Distinguished Research Medal (2022), Fellowship of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (2017), and Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori and the law. As Aotearoa New Zealand’s first Māori woman Professor of Law, she influences policy through roles on Te Papa Tongarewa board, Ministry for the Environment Kāhui Wai Māori, and Environmental Defence Society, and as a TEDx speaker and Fulbright scholar.