Contact
Email ben.france-hudson@otago.ac.nz
Research interests
Ben France-Hudson researches the law and theory of private property, with particular interests in natural resources, land law, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. His work explores how private law institutions can respond to major environmental and societal challenges.
Ben is the co-author (with Vanessa Johnston (RMIT)) of Property Law and Climate Change: Inextricably Linked (Routledge, 2026). Launching the book, the Honourable Justice Preston, Chief Judge of the New South Wales Land and Environment Court, described it as an important contribution at a "critical turning point in the doctrinal development of property law". He praised the book's demonstration of the "creative deployment of property law to address climate change", its account of property law's capacity to adapt and evolve in response to the climate crisis, and its provision of a "blueprint for practitioners, planners and policymakers alike". The book develops a comparative framework for integrating climate mitigation and adaptation into property law.
Ben has played a leading role in research and policy development relating to climate adaptation and managed retreat in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2017, he and colleagues from GNS Science received funding through the Resilience to Nature's Challenges National Science Challenge for a project examining the management of existing land uses in hazard-prone areas. The resulting report, Reducing Risk Through the Management of Existing Uses: Tensions under the RMA, was awarded the New Zealand Planning Institute's John Mawson Award of Merit in 2020.
This research led to a period working with the Ministry for the Environment, where Ben contributed to policy development for the Natural and Built Environments and Spatial Planning Act reforms, as well as proposals for a Climate Adaptation Act designed to support managed retreat. During this period, New Zealand's work on managed retreat culminated in the publication of the Report of the Expert Working Group on Managed Retreat: A Proposed System for Te Hekenga Rauora/Planned Relocation, a significant step in the development of a national framework for climate adaptation.
Ben's scholarship has received national and international recognition. In 2017, he was awarded the Journal of Environmental Law Richard Macrory Prize for his article "Surprisingly Social: Private Property and Environmental Management". He has also contributed extensively to legal practice and law reform, including authorship of several chapters of the leading New Zealand text Brookers Land Law. He is a contributing author to the Butterworths Conveyancing Bulleting.
Beyond academia, Ben was appointed a Public Member of the New Zealand Media Council in 2019. He is also a member of the New Zealand Law Society's Property Law Section and was appointed to its Property Law Reform Panel in 2018.
Earlier, Ben was part of a multi-university research team funded by BRANZ and the New Zealand Law Foundation to examine reforms to the legal frameworks governing the ownership and use of multi-unit developments.
Background
Alongside his academic career, Ben has held a number of legal and public policy roles in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. He has worked as a Judges' Clerk at the High Court in Christchurch, a solicitor in the Treasury Solicitor's Office in London, Assistant Crown Counsel at Crown Law in Wellington, and later took leave from academia to serve as Principal Analyst at the Ministry for the Environment. His experience spans private and public law, litigation, law reform, and environmental and climate policy development.
Publications
Johnston, V., & France-Hudson, B. (2026). Property law and climate change: Inextricably linked. London, UK: Routledge, 230p. doi: 10.4324/9780429021527 Authored Book - Research
France-Hudson, B. (2025). Mr Frazer versus Mr Walker: Who would win now? Adelaide Law Review, 46(1), 119-134. Journal - Research Article
France-Hudson, B. (2024). Property rights versus environment? A critique of the coalition government’s approach to the reform of the Resource Management Act. Policy Quarterly, 20(4), 35-43. doi: 10.26686/pq.v20i4.9637 Journal - Research Article
France-Hudson, B. (2021). Easements, the Ouster Principle and coherence across the common law world. In S. Farran, R. Hewitson & A. Ramshaw (Eds.), Modern studies in property law (Vol. 11). (pp. 239-256). Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing. Chapter in Book - Research
France-Hudson, B. (2020). Judicial interpretation of Torrens registered documents. In D. Grinlinton & R. Thomas (Eds.), Land registration and title security in the digital age: New horizons for Torrens. (pp. 315-333). New York, NY: Routledge. Chapter in Book - Research