8th Pacific Law and Culture Conference, 2-4 July 2018, School of Law, University of Canterbury, Christchurch

Conference aims

Hosted by the School of Law, the Pasifika Law Students’ Society and the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, the aims of the Pacific Law and Culture Conference are to increase understanding of Pacific legal issues and to strengthen relationships between Pacific legal scholars and students. The Conference provides a platform for emerging and established Pacific legal scholars to consider the critical question of how to make law operate effectively whilst remaining culturally appropriate to the Pacific.

Conference theme: Voices of the Pacific in a Globalised World

In 2018 the theme for the 8th Pacific Law and Culture Conference is Voices of the Pacific in a Globalised World.

This theme raises various questions including:

• In an increasingly globalised legal world, what can be done to ensure that Indigenous Pacific voices and perspectives are heard locally, nationally and internationally?
• How can issues of conflict between international law or state law on the one hand, and Pacific culture and/or customary laws on the other be resolved?
• How can Pacific perspectives be incorporated into the laws of states with large Pacific diaspora?

Keynote speakers

Confirmed keynote speakers are:

• Justice DV Fatiaki, Justice of the Supreme Court of Vanuatu.
• Teleiai Dr Lalotoa Mulitalo, Executive Director/CEO of the Samoa Law Reform Commission and author of Law Reform in Plural Societies (Springer, 2017).
• Dr Claire Slatter, scholar and activist of Fiji. Recent publications include “The New Framework for Pacific Regionalism: Old Kava in a New Tanoa?” in Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (eds) The New Pacific Diplomacy (ANU Press, Canberra, 2015).

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