Rate My Professor Paul Roth

Emeritus Professor Paul Roth is a prominent legal academic in the Faculty of Law at the University of Otago, where he lectured from the late 1980s until his retirement in 2019 after a 30-year career. He holds a BA from Brown University, an LLB (Hons) from the University of Otago, an MA, and a PhD in ancient Greek philology from Bryn Mawr College. Roth began his teaching career lecturing in classics, Greek, and Latin at several United States universities, including Colorado College, Bowdoin College, and the University of Hawaii. After emigrating to New Zealand and graduating with his law degree, he joined Otago Law Faculty. He worked as a local government solicitor in London in the administrative law and parliamentary affairs department and practiced as a specialist labour law advocate and barrister, appearing in the Employment Tribunal, Human Rights Review Tribunal, Employment Court, High Court, and Court of Appeal. Roth volunteered at the Dunedin Community Law Centre as a duty solicitor and undertook work for government agencies, the International Labour Office in Geneva, the European Union, and an international team drafting model labour laws for Liberia.

Roth's academic interests centre on international human rights law, employment law, and privacy and information law, including data protection. He taught labour law, international human rights law, and information and data protection law, with specific research on child labour and migrant labour in New Zealand, workplace issues from new technologies, and data protection regulation for Web 2.0 activities. His inaugural professorial lecture in 2008 was titled 'Child Labour in New Zealand: A Job for the Nanny State?'. Key publications include Roth's Companion to the Privacy Act 2020 (2020), Privacy Law and Practice (LexisNexis NZ, multiple editions including 2018), 'Indigenous Peoples and Employment Law: The Australasian Model' (New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations, 2018), 'Employment Law' (New Zealand Law Review, 2018), and the book chapter 'Indigenous Voices at Work' in Voices at Work: Continuity and Change in the Common Law World (2014). Roth has contributed extensively to privacy law developments relevant to employment through articles and case notes.