Amokura Kawharu

Amokura Kawharu is a New Zealand jurist who serves as a judge of the High Court, sitting in the Auckland High Court. She was previously a legal academic and barrister. Kawharu was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2021. She was the first woman and the first Māori to be president of the New Zealand Law Commission.

Academic and legal career

Kawharu earned a BA/LLB(Hons) degree from the University of Auckland, followed by a Master of Laws at the University of Cambridge with a major in international law, and a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington.

In 2020 she was appointed as President of the New Zealand Law Commission, and was both the first woman and the first Māori appointed to the role. For several years Kawharu was a Board member of New Zealand's Māori Centre of Research Excellence, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga.

Kawharu has published widely in the arbitration law field, and is co-author with Sir David Williams KC of the leading text on arbitration law in New Zealand, Williams & Kawharu on Arbitration. Now on its second edition, the first won the Legal Research Foundation's JF Northey Memorial Book Award for 2011.

Awards Kawharu is a Fellow of the Arbitrators’ and Mediators’ Institute of New Zealand.

Personal life She is affiliated with Ngāti Whātua and Ngāpuhi iwi.