Promoting the Rule of Law for a Safer, more Secure, Blue Pacific

Representatives from Pacific Island countries recently attended the Pacific Island Law Officers Network (PILON) 43^rd Annual Meeting in Nadi, Fiji.

Convened by the PILON Secretariat, the annual meeting brings together senior public law officers and observers such as the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police (PICP) to discuss regional challenges and strategies for future action.

The meeting showcased a series of presentations on challenges faced by the Pacific, and updates on regional initiatives aimed at strengthening the rule of law and enhancing legal cooperation. These challenges included responses to natural disasters, climate change, transnational crime, environmental protection, and the evolving needs for cybersecurity measures, sex, and gender-based violence, online safety, and corruption.

The Secretariat's Executive Coordinator, Julian Bianco, attended on behalf of the PICP and presented on various significant initiatives undertaken by Pacific police.

In his address, he highlighted “if we don’t have effective legislation in place and law officers to prosecute offenders, policing our communities and those who choose to offend becomes extremely difficult”.

To emphasise the value of collaboration between police and law officers, he provided an update on the Pacific Police Initiative, for which PILON members have actively contributed to the initiative's design process, and thanked PILON for the excellent work undertaken by its Sexual and Gender Based Violence Working Group, on the Regional Guidelines to support vulnerable witnesses through the prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence offences. Further updates were provided on PICP’s activities that are complimentary to PILON's Working Groups on Cyber and Corruption.

The PICP thanks PILON for its support and ongoing efforts to promote the rule of law, to achieve our collective vision of Our Blue Pacific: Safer Together.

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ABOUT: PILON is a network of senior public law officers from the Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand, which focuses on common legal issues within the Pacific region.  The secretariat is located in Apia, Samoa.  The PICP became an observer to PILON in 2016.