Defining Public Interest Law
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EDITOR'S NOTE
Defining Public Interest Law
JAYDEN HOUGHTON*
What is public interest law? This is not an easy question to answer. Many scholars have
grappled with the question since the late-1960s,' and I am not sure we are closer to a
commonly accepted definition today.
Public interest law is generally defined by who it represents.2 Strictly speaking,
it represents the underprivileged. But, more broadly, it might be said to represent the
underrepresented or unrepresented: persons neglected or excluded from the decision-
making process on issues of importance to them.
Another way to define public interest law is to focus on whatis at issue. Rick Bigwood,
for example, defines public interest litigation as litigation in which the litigants:3
... seek to use the ordinary Courts to vindicate particular, and often highly contestable,
social or political causes that they believe are not receiving the traction they deserve in the
political arena.
But this still returns us to the who. When social and political causes are pursued through
the court system, they always directly or indirectly concern persons and groups that
are not the parties legally represented in the court. But when are these unrepresented
the unrepresented?
* Rereahu Maniapoto. Faculty of Law, University of Auckland. Jayden has written the Editor's Note
for this issue on behalf of all members of the editorial team.
1 In 1978, Burton A Weisbrod suggested that there is no consensus as to what [the term] means,
even in an approximate sense. Burton A Weisbrod Conceptual Perspective on the Public
Interest: An Economic Interest in Burton A Weisbrod, Joel F Handler and Neil K Komesar Public
Interest Law: An Economic and Institutiona/Analysis (University of California Press, Berkeley,
1978) 4 at 4. In 1985, Jeremy Rabkin wrote that no single definition is commonly accepted.
Jeremy Rabkin Public Interest Law: Is It Law in the Public Interest? (1985) 8 Harvard Journal of
Law & Public Policy 341 at 341.
2 Introduction in Edwin Rekosh, Kyra A Buchko and Vessela Terzieva (eds) Pursuing the Public
Interest: A Handbook for Legal Professionals and Activists (Public Interest Law Initiative in
Transitional Societies, Columbia Law School, 2001) 1 at 1.
3 Rick Bigwood Introduction and Overview in Rick Bigwood (ed) Public Interest Litigation: New
Zealand Experience in International Perspectve(LexisNexis NZ, Wellington, 2006) at 1.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/piljnz2&div=4&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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