Pacific-focused research awarded $800k

As the Pacific grapples with heightened security and climate change concerns, a new investigation is getting underway to shed light on how international organisations have developed and governed across the region.

Understanding how organisations operate in the region will be of benefit to Pacific nations, whose bureaucracies are often strained by the push-pull of multiple institutional environments, says associate professor in public international law Guy Fiti Sinclair, the recipient of a five-year $800,000 Rutherford Discovery Fellowship, announced today.

Dr Sinclair’s research will analyse the international legal framework in the Pacific through the global organisations operating in the region.

"There's a lot of attention on the Pacific currently because of security concerns and also because it's an area heavily impacted by climate change and other issues, so there's a real opportunity to think about how these international organisations can work better and how they can interact more effectively."

Sinclair is hopeful his research will assist policymakers and government officials in Aotearoa to navigate the dynamics of regional law and politics and continue to keep the bonds strong across all of Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa.

"There are competing visions and informal and formal interactions across Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa. I will be exploring all those kinds of relationships, and the research will help to grow our understanding of the different organisations operating in the Pacific."

In 2017 Dr Sinclair was awarded a Marsden Fund Fast-Start grant to explore the origins of the international economic legal system from the Second World War until the present. His research analysed the development of key global institutions such as the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.

"Now, this Rutherford support allows me to shift to a more regional focus and to think about how the Pacific has been constructed and contested as a region by these different modes of international legal ordering. For example, we can think about right after the Second World War, when an international organisation was created called the South Pacific Commission.”

This organisation, says Dr Sinclair, was very much dominated by the colonial powers of the times including New Zealand, Australia, the UK, the US and France.

"The South Pacific Commission encapsulated a sort of vision of the Pacific at that time with particular sorts of membership, and in a way, it was a Pacific that stretched all the way to Europe."

In addition to global organisations, there are multiple regional organisations established by Pacific Island states, says Dr Sinclair. These address ocean and fisheries management, climate change, trade, development, and security, among other concerns.

Puzzlingly, though, says Sinclair, Pacific-based international organisations have barely been examined from a legal perspective, and much remains to be learned about their contributions to international law and governance, both individually and collectively.

During his Rutherford Discovery Fellowship, Dr Sinclair hopes to work with several PhD and masters students interested in researching Pacific regional governance through the international organisations operating in the region as well as Pacific-based international organisations.