Te Pae Tawhiti Postgraduate Scholarship for Jessica Kirton-Luxford
Borrin Foundation Te Pae Tawhiti Postgraduate Scholarship
About Jessica
Jess graduated from the University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka in 2023 with a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and a Bachelor of Arts (Politics, Philosophy and Economics), and received prizes including the Otago District Law Society Prize (awarded to the two top performing law students in the graduating class). During University, Jessica clerked at a large commercial firm, completed an internship at a Tokyo-based NGO, worked as a research assistant and was head tutor for the first-year law programme at the University of Otago.
Following her studies, Jess clerked for Justice Cooper, President of the Court of Appeal, where she worked on a range of civil and criminal issues. During this time, she was a teaching assistant for the law of torts at Victoria University of Wellington.
Jess is currently working as a junior barrister at Thorndon Chambers, assisting chambers members on public, international and commercial law matters.
In her spare time, Jessica is a passionate artist, and enjoys running and bouldering.
What Jessica is studying
Jess will use her Borrin Foundation grant to study towards a taught master’s degree with a thesis component in the United Kingdom or Canada.
Jess is passionate about using all possible mechanisms to improve the position of future generations in respect of wicked policy issues like climate change. She proposes that her research will examine novel legal tools and frameworks to mitigate and address climate change. She intends that her dissertation examines the practical implications for the operationalisation of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Option decision in an Aotearoa New Zealand context, including the impact of the Advisory Opinion on the New Zealand courts’ role (and its limits) in domestic climate change litigation.
Scholarship amount
$50,000
“I am immensely grateful for the Borrin Foundation’s support in pursuing post-graduate study. The grant will enable me to better contribute to the mitigation of complex politico-legal issues affecting communities in Aotearoa and globally.”