Dr David V Williams is a Professor Emeritus and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has tertiary qualifications in history, law and theology. His PhD is from the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania where he taught in the 1970s. He has held a number of visiting positions at the University of Oxford and the University of Dar es Salaam. He continues to work as an independent researcher on Treaty of Waitangi claims by indigenous Māori. He is an Honorary Fellow of the American Society for Legal History and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi. He has authored 6 books including Te Kooti tango whenua: The Native Land Court 1864-1909 (Huia, 1999), A simple nullity? The Wi Parata case in New Zealand law and history (AUP, 2011) and (with Cris Shore) Shapeshifting Crown: Locating the State in Post-Colonial New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK (CUP, 2019). Additional publications in the areas of constitutional law, colonial legal history and the Treaty of Waitangi include 21 book chapters, 36 refereed journal articles and 11 major technical reports submitted to the Waitangi Tribunal or the Office of Treaty Settlements. 

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