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In this essential book, Sir Kenneth Keith draws on the entirety of his illustrious career as a lawyer, teacher, judge and judicial reformer.
Without Fear or Favour begins with fundamentals: who does what and how, the sources of law nationally and internationally, constitutional principles and values, and time and the law.
Keith then moves on to consider the growth (and retreat) of the law, with chapters on the roles of international law in our constitutional and legal system, te Tiriti o Waitangi, bringing law to bear on governments, and protecting human rights.
Part three considers the law of negligence and piracy, the actions of public authorities, the disclosure and protection of information, the writing and reading of law, and litigating and judging.
Finally, Keith turns to the future. What roles will the legal academy, the law and lawyers play as we face the major challenges ahead?
'Without Fear or Favour is a book to be read on many levels: as an account of a life in law lived generously and intelligently; as a sane and thoughtful description of the legal order; as a history of the legal thinking of our times; as a description of the evolution of law at a time of change; as a challenge for the future. It is a work to be mined by those who want to understand law now and think about where it may be heading.' —Sian Elias
Sir Kenneth James Keith ONZ KBE KC was born in 1937 and educated at Auckland Grammar School, the University of Auckland, Victoria University of Wellington and Harvard Law School. He was a faculty member of Victoria University from 1962 to 1964 and from 1966 to 1991, and served in the New Zealand Department of External Affairs during the early 1960s, and as a member of the United Nations Secretariat from 1968 to 1970.
From 1996 to 2003, he was a Judge of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand and a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, and was subsequently one of the inaugural appointments to the new Supreme Court of New Zealand, which replaced the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 2004. He was elected to the International Court of Justice in November 2005, serving a nine-year term from 2006 to 2015.
In the 1988 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Kenneth Keith was appointed a Knight-Companion of the Order of the British Empire, for services to law reform and legal education, and in the 2007 Queen’s Birthday Honours he was appointed a Member of the Order of New Zealand.
Cover: Kenneth Keith in International Court of Justice robes (oil painting by Marike Bok, 2014)
