Nicola Wheen

Nicola Rowan Wheen is a New Zealand academic, and is a full professor at the University of Otago, specialising in national and international environmental law, and environmental law and the Treaty of Waitangi.

Academic career

Wheen joined the law department at the University of Otago in 1984 as a student, where she earned her LLB. She then joined the academic staff in 1989, rising to associate professor in 2015 and full professor in 2021. She researches how law addresses international and national environmental problems, such as whaling, marine mammal by-catch, climate change, freshwater allocation, forest conservation on Māori-owned land, the environmental impacts of tourism, and how sex work is regulated through planning law. Wheen also has an interest in how the Treaty of Waitangi affects environmental law. She has co-edited books on the Treaty of Waitangi, and Treaty of Waitangi Settlements, with Janine Hayward. Wheen also wrote chapters in Environmental Histories of New Zealand, published in 2002, and The Law of Research, published 2003.

Wheen teaches and convenes courses on Public Law, Environmental Law and International Environmental Law at Otago, and has supervised more than fifty honours and postgraduate students.

Selected works

Books

Articles Wheen, Nicola. A Natural Flow - A History of Water Law in New Zealand. Otago Law Review 71 (1997-2000). Brookers environmental legislation handbook 2014, with an introduction by Ceri Warnock and Nicola Wheen. (Brookers environmental law handbook series). Thomson Reuters New Zealand