Travel and Learning Award for Allan Beever
Borrin Foundation Travel and Learning Award
Allan’s plan
“It is vital that legal initiatives to aid people not only do good for those people but also treat them with proper respect. Unfortunately, the evidence in this country and internationally suggests that a significant number of people do not feel this way about the law or government more generally. They feel instead that the law infantilizes them, treating them as less than full moral adults. Lawmakers do this with the best of intentions, but the result is distressing. It is in part because of this that we see growing disaffection with government, so evident in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, but also apparent here, as our Covid experience revealed”. Says Professor Beever. The aim of this research is to identify ways in which the law can address citizens so that they feel, not only aided by legal initiatives, but also properly respected as full moral adults. Professor Beever will use his research grant to travel to the United Kingdom to present the findings of his book Freedom under the Private Law and also to collect important feedback for the next stage of his project.
About Allan
Professor Beever is a leading tort lawyer and theorist of private law. Author of the books Rediscovering the Law of Negligence, Forgotten Justice: A History of Political and Legal Theory, The Law of Private Nuisance, A Theory of Tort Liability, Law’s Reality: A Philosophy of Law and Freedom under the Private Law as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters, Professor Beever’s research has had a significant impact on scholarship in his areas of expertise. In recognition of this, he has won prestigious awards, including a Humboldt Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany and a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust, UK. In 2013, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne Law School held a symposium on Professor Beever’s work, entitled ‘Allan Beever on Tort Law and Political Philosophy – A Newcastle Law School Symposium’ and in 2014, the Australian Society of Legal Philosophy Annual Conference featured a book symposium on his book Forgotten Justice.
Professor Beever is currently Professor of Law at the Auckland University of Technology. He has previously held positions at the Universities of South Australia, Ottawa, Southampton, Durham and Auckland and at the Max Plank Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg.
Grant Amount
$9,100 in 2024 to support travel
“I am extremely grateful to the Borrin Foundation for this award, which will enable me to reconnect with colleagues in the United Kingdom whose work is crucial for my research after years of isolation due to the impact of Covid.”