P.G. McHugh was born in Gisborne in 1958. He gained an LLB (Hons) from Victoria University in Wellington, an LLM from the University of Saskatchewan, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. His PhD dissertation, The Aboriginal Rights of the New Zealand Maori at Common Law, won a Yorke Prize for outstanding law dissertations. His pioneering work on common law aboriginal title has had a major impact on the field of Maori rights. His work has influenced Government policy and legislation, notably in fisheries. His more recent work has become inter-disciplinary, linking law to the history of political thought. He has written commissioned papers for the New Zealand and Canadian Ministries of Justice.

P.G McHugh is a Tutor at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and Ashley McHugh-Ngai Tahu Visiting Professor of Law at Victoria University in Wellington, where he spends eleven weeks each year teaching and researching.