Law student wins energy scholarship

Law student wins energy scholarship

Waikato University science and law student Catherine Kubs has won an Energy Law Association scholarship to attend a high powered energy conference in Sydney.

Kubs, in the final year of a BSc/LLB (Hons) is researching legal liability in carbon capture and storage (CCS) operations as part of her Resource Management Law Honours paper at Waikato and will attend the AMPLA (Australian resource and energy law association) conference in Sydney at the end of the month. It’s Australasia’s foremost gathering of legal specialists in energy and natural resources.

“CCS is a new and developing technology, and new technologies always raise new legal problems.” says Kubs. “The Australians have introduced new legislation which deals with liability for CCS projects and I want to see whether a similar law would work in New Zealand, or even if we’d want such a law here.”

She says the conference will be a great opportunity to meet others working in the resources and energy field – academics and industry players. Her scholarship will cover her travel and accommodation while she’s in Sydney.

Law lecturer Professor Barry Barton says Catherine’s research is important. “We need a legal regime that makes CCS possible in New Zealand as a means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and to establish it we need a clear understanding of its legal ramifications. It’s great that Catherine can bring Australian perspectives to bear on her analysis. We’re grateful to the ELA for its support of our students’ work.”

Catherine Kubs is working part-time at A J Park, a specialist intellectual property firm in Auckland, and will take up a permanent position there next year. She says science and law is not a common degree combination but both are useful in the IP field where she’s currently working. She says she chose to attend Waikato University because it enabled her to study both subjects concurrently and learn from some of the country’s leading academics.

ENDS

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