Justice Fellowship for Alexander Gillespie
Alexander Gillespie is a Borrin Foundation Justice Fellow. He is researching what best practice firearms legislation should look like to better protect New Zealanders from firearm-related violence.
Borrin Foundation Justice Fellowship
Alexander’s research
The negative impacts of firearms upon New Zealand are significant and growing and a review of the Arms Act is set to take place by the end of 2026. To help inform and influence this debate, Alexander will investigate what best practice firearms legislation should look like, to determine what revisions should, and should not, be made to the legislation in order to better protect New Zealanders from firearm-related violence.
After showing the unique context of New Zealand’s firearms regulation, legal and illegal markets and their impacts, Alexander will investigate the firearms agencies in comparable countries – with Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States at the fore – to highlight what best practice looks like for four key challenges: (1) reducing suicide by firearm; (2) decreasing the risks of mass-shootings and/or terrorism associated with firearms; (3) understanding the flow of illegal firearms in the country and how a firearm registry could help reduce the number of illegal firearms; and (4) futureproofing firearms laws for the next generation of changing technology.
About Alexander
Professor Alexander Gillespie obtained his LLB and LLM degrees with Honours from The University of Auckland. He did his PhD at Nottingham and post-doctoral studies at Columbia University in New York City. His areas of scholarship currently pertain to the laws of war and the regulation of firearms. Alexander has published nineteen books. His most recent works are the jointly written People, Power and Law: A New Zealand History; and Volume IV of his Causes of War (1650-1800) series.
Alexander has previously been awarded a Rotary Scholarship, a Fulbright Fellowship, a residency at the Rockerfeller Bellagio Centre; the NZ Law Foundation International Research Fellowship and the Francqui Foundation award with which he held a professorship at Ghent University, Belgium. In 2021 he was the joint winner of the Critic and Conscience of Society Award.
Professor Gillespie was named Rapporteur for the World Heritage Convention, under the auspice of UNESCO. He has worked extensively with a number of other international organisations, and governmental, commercial and non-governmental organisations in New Zealand, Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Ireland and Switzerland. He has also made a number of appearances before the Waitangi Tribunal and Select Committees of the New Zealand Parliament.
Grant Amount
$116,072 for in 2024 – 2025
“This work will directly overlap with the review of the Arms Act occurring throughout 2026. The result should, literally, help save the lives of New Zealanders. Without the assistance of this fellowship, I would not be able to pursue this topic in time for the work to be successful or to the level of depth that will enable me to seek innovative, evidence based solutions from New Zealand and comparative jurisdictions.”
– Alexander Gillespie