The time is right for significant changes in human rights protection in the Pacific region. This was the conclusion of a regional seminar on Strategies for the Future: Protecting Human Rights in the Pacific in Apia, Samoa on 28 and 29 April 2008 cohosted by INTERIGHTS, together with the Attorney-General’s Office of Samoa, and the New Zealand Centre for Public Law (Victoria University of Wellington). The event was funded with the assistance of the Commonwealth Secretariat, Government of Samoa, NZAid and the Federal Republic of Germany Foreign Office. At the meeting the Samoan Government confirmed that it had recently ratified the ICCPR.

Thee meeting attended by representatives of civil society organisations, National Human Rights Institutions and international human rights organisations, Members of Parliament, jurists and academics based in nine Pacific Island states – Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Australia and New Zealand – together with international experts from Chile, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The aim of the conference was to identify (a) key human rights challenges in the Pacific and (b) strategies for strengthening national, regional and international mechanisms for enhanced protection of human rights in the region. Participants discussed a range of issues particularly relevant for the region including culture and language, education, health, environment, and the rule of law.  In addition they examined the prospects for a Pacific human rights mechanism supplemented by presentations on existing regional mechanisms in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and in Europe.

Participants, whilst welcoming recent ratifications by some Pacific Island states of the ICCPR, concluded that there was a need to strengthen rights protection and promotion mechanisms in the region. They also committed themselves to ensuring that universal standards were implemented in the region whilst not neglecting Pacific values.

Pacific island governments were urged to translate commitments in the Pacific Plan into practical action by demonstrating the necessary political will to develop a regional human rights mechanism through the auspices of the Pacific Islands Forum and in co-operation with civil society. To that end the meeting decided to establish a representative working group of participants and other key civil society stakeholders in the region with the immediate aim of drafting and submitting a proposal on a potential regional human rights mechanism for the Pacific Island leaders’ meeting in August 2009.

Related Links

Conference Website

Victoria University of Wellington Law Review Volume 40 Number 1 June 2009 Special Issue: Human Rights in the Pacific