About the East-West Center

The East-West Center promotes better relations and understanding among the United States, Asia and the Pacific through collaborative study, research, and dialogue. Across Asia and the Pacific Islands, and at our campuses in Honolulu and Washington DC, the Center hosts conferences, exchanges, and in-depth trainings for policymakers, educators, cultural and civil-society leaders, and entrepreneurs. The Center conducts multidisciplinary research on environmental issues, public health, demography, economic policy and geopolitics, and provides graduate degree fellowships for the next generation of leaders. The Center also hosts the Pacific Islands Development Program—the focal point of EWC programming for Pacific nations, and the seat of the secretariat of the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders.

EWC and PROJECT Governance

The East-West Center is proud to join SPC, IFES, and CARE as part of the Blue Pacific Alliance implementing PROJECT Governance. EWC will lead four mutually reinforcing activities focused on supporting financial-governance offices and officials across the region:

• Financial Governance Training: A region-wide training program to enhance Pacific governments’ sovereign authority and law-enforcement capabilities to identify, investigate, and prosecute financial crimes, by strengthening national financial governance agencies and connecting them regionally through a Pacific Islands Financial Intelligence Network.
• Financial Media Training: Reporting tours and training programs in government investment and financial policies for Pacific investigative journalists and media professionals, expanding the independent media’s ability to inform the public on financial issues and hold governments and enforcement agencies accountable.
• PROJECT Governance Graduate Fellows: Equipping a core group of exceptional Pacific governance leaders through graduate degree fellowships for advanced degrees in management and finance.
• Blue Pacific Governance Gateway: An online platform to support, synergize, and sustain the full array of PROJECT Governance initiatives. The Gateway will serve as a digital meeting place and resource for networking, communications, and capacity development, and as the portal for sharing the digital tools and data developed across the project.

For more information about the East-West Center and PROJECT Governance, please contact us at [email protected].

Wednesday 5 June 2013, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Suva, Fiji –

A three-day regional consultation for judges and senior magistrates from across the Pacific, organised by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community Regional Rights Resources Team (SPC RRRT), took place this week in Brisbane, Australia.

The consultation focused on judicial independence, rule of law, and human rights issues in the contemporary Pacific context. They included sexual- and gender-based violence, disability inclusiveness and impacts of the Convention of the Rights of the Child on adoption.

The consultation serves as a forum for judges and magistrates from the Pacific region to share their professional experiences, with the aim of expanding their knowledge of human rights issues and best practices in the region.

The keynote address at the opening ceremony on Monday was delivered by Justice Logan of the Federal Court of Australia. The Pacific judges and magistrates were later hosted to a cocktail reception by the Chief Justice of Queensland, the Honourable Paul de Jersey, and judges of the Supreme Court of Queensland.

The consultation was attended by judges and magistrates from Australia, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu.

SPC RRRT has supported the work of regional judges and magistrates for over a decade, mainly focusing on the promotion and application of international human rights treaties and universal standards in Pacific courts. This work supports state obligations derived through the ratification of international human rights treaties and the application and domestication of international human rights standards in Pacific courts.

The regional consultation this week is generously supported by AusAID.

For more information, please contact Jilda Shem, SPC RRRT Communications Officer on +679 330 5994 or email [email protected]

17 DECEMBER 2010 SUVA (RRRT)

The Chief Justice of New Zealand, Dame Sian Elias congratulated SPC/RRRT and AusAID for supporting human rights dialogue amongst members of the judiciary in the Pacific.

In her speech she reiterated to her 18 Pacific colleagues that human rights can galvanise social and legal change and are central to the rule of law. Chief Justice Elias made these remarks at the opening of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community / Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team (SPC/RRRT) 2010 Pacific Judges and Magistrates Consultation in Auckland, New Zealand.

She reflected on the rights and freedoms violated in World War 2 and called for greater commitment towards meeting human rights standards and norms in our island states.

The representatives of the Pacific Islands judiciary are attending the three-day consultation reviewing human rights issues, including disability rights and legislation on violence against women.

The consultation is organised and hosted by SPC/RRRT and funded by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID).

RRRT is an SPC programme that provides human rights training, technical support, and policy and advocacy services tailored specifically for the Pacific region....PNS (ENDS)

For further information, please contact Seema Naidu, SPC / RRRT Human Rights Trainer, Fiji +(679) 330-5582 NZ +(64) 9 337-0349 (Dec. 10–14) or email: [email protected]

Tuesday 11 March 2009, Secretariat of the Pacific Community, New York

Pacific laws on violence against women (VAW) are outdated and treat women with indifference despite the globally high rates of VAW in the Pacific region.

Pacific Island governments need to make a concerted effort to review this legislation so that laws can better protect women.

Secretariat of the Pacific Community/Regional Rights Resource Team (SPC/RRRT) Gender and Human Rights Advisor, Imrana Jalal, made the comments whilst addressing members of the Pacific Islands Forum who attended the 53rd United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) held recently in New York.

Pacific representatives from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, as well as Australia and New Zealand attended the meeting.

Jalal told those Pacific government representatives that only a handful of Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) had made some progress.

Jalal said Fiji had addressed some elements of domestic violence in its family law but had not touched sexual violence or domestic violence in its criminal or civil codes. Despite being the first country in the region to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, Samoa had not passed any legislation addressing any area of women's rights, since ratification.

Jalal was at the UNCSW as chair of the high-level UN Expert Group on Best Practices in Violence against Women Legislation. The panel advises the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on best practices from around the globe in terms of laws which relate to violence against women (VAW).

She told the PICT government representatives that SPC/RRRT had won a substantial grant from the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) Trust Fund. SPC/RRRT had to compete with 1027 applicants worldwide for the grant.

The grant, worth USD 720,000 provides SPC/RRRT with some resources to work with PICT governments and non-government organisations to help reform laws which relate to VAW. SPC/RRRT was the only Pacific organisation to win one of the 28 grants available.

Jalal said the grant focused on addressing the issue of legislation specifically, and SPC/RRRT's effort is meant to build on the groundwork already laid by organisations such the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre (FWCC) Pacific Women's Network on VAW.

The UNIFEM Trust Fund Pacific project ties in with the expert group's findings on best practices globally. Jalal said the best VAW laws emanated from the developing world, not the developed world, citing Mexico, Albania and India as examples.

Jalal said that compared to global standards, Vanuatu's new domestic violence law is also 'pretty decent legislation', although it is far from perfect. She said there were no perfect laws in the arena of human relationships.

Jalal said that the goal of the SPC/RRRT UNIFEM Trust Fund project was 'changing laws protecting women and lobbying for legislative change in violence against women and family law in order to enhance protective legislation for women and girls in six PICTs'.

Initially, SPC/RRRT will begin the legislative reforms with the governments of Cook Islands, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Samoa.

Jalal said that there was no need to re-invent the wheel as the UN Expert Group on Best Practices in VAW Legislation had come up with a compilation of best practices from around the globe which could be adapted to suit the Pacific context.

Whilst in New York Jalal made four presentations at various CSW panels as Chair of the UN Expert Group on Best Practices in VAW Legislation and also a half-hour video on VAW legislation for the UN's Division for the Advancement of Women (UNDAW). The video will be available on UNDAW's website shortly.

For more information, contact Sandra Bernklau, Programme Manager SPC/RRRT +(679) 3305 582 or email: [email protected]

Background: The Regional Rights Resource Team (RRRT), which is a programme of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), works with partners in nine focus countries (Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa,Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Nauru and Vanuatu) to offer training and expert advice on the development of human rights advocacy, lobbying, mobilisation strategies and the drafting of national human rights legislation. The team provides human rights training, technical support, and policy and advocacy services tailored specifically for the Pacific region. Its mission is to seek a Pacific region that is respected for the quality of its governance, the sustainable management of its resources, the full observance of democratic values and for its defence and promotion of human rights.