The Capacity to Endure: Leveraging the Question of Sustainable Free Access in the New Zealand Context

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  • Presentation speakers
    • Donna Buckingham, Founder and Director, New Zealand Legal Information Institute (NZLII)

  Video (starts at 6:20)

  In 2010 the global research project “Free Access to Law – Is it here to stay?” began under the research directorship of Professor Daniel Poulin of the University of Montreal. It focuses on building case studies on the operational sustainability of free access to law projects. Whilst not the subject of a case study, the New Zealand Legal Information Institute (NZLII) is on track to sustainability, if the measure of success is a response to a clear and pressing need and a comprehensive growth in free access coverage. Nonetheless NZLII’s capacity to endure is as certain as the last grant it holds and ‘reinvestment’ in free access is a contestable prospect. But if reinvestment is the ultimate marker of sustainability, is that question solely answered in terms of an organisation’s continued existence or can it also be addressed by the degree to which the organisation has helped embed the will to protect the free access to law principle?

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