Promoting Sustainable Fishing in the Pacific Islands

International Development Law Center Faculty Director Jessica Vapnek (top right) meets with attorneys from the Pacific Community, an intergovernmental organization, and a Samoan fisheries officer as part of a grant-funded project to help Pacific Island nations develop stronger laws and regulations for sustainable fishing and aquaculture.

The International Development Law Center and UC Law SF community received the third successive grant by the Pacific Community (SPC), an intergovernmental organization based in Nouméa, New Caledonia. The project aims to strengthen the legal capacity of Pacific Island countries and territories in coastal fisheries and aquaculture. Through the project, UC Law SF students and graduates take part in internships and externships at SPC.

UC Law SF offered, for the second time, an asynchronous course on legislative drafting in coastal fisheries and aquaculture. The course enables fisheries officers and lawyers from across the Pacific Region to gain experience in legislative drafting. Professor of Practice Jessica Vapnek and SPC colleagues designed and created the course during a prior iteration of the grant. In February 2024, Professor Vapnek and UC Law SF Graduate Fellow Claudia Cantarella travelled to New Caledonia for a validation workshop, which brought together course participants for an intensive week of legislative drafting training. The course has been enhanced with improvements each year thanks to valuable feedback from participants .

Samoa

The International Development Law Center received a grant this year from the U.S. Embassy in Samoa for the project, “Legislative Drafting Training for Fisheries and Legal Officers.” This project is jointly implemented by the UC Law SF and the Pacific Community (SPC).

The project aims to teach legislative drafting to fisheries officers from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, along with representatives of the Attorney General’s Office in Samoa. This helps Samoa cover its human resources gap. It also enhances the nation’s ability to protect key fisheries resources from overfishing or illegal harvesting through strong legislation. This is essential, because first drafts supplied by fisheries officers in Samoa are seldom adequate, due to a lack of experience in legislative drafting. To encourage Samoan applicants to pursue legal studies, the project also offers tuition discounts for applicants from Samoa applying for the Master of Studies in Law (MSL) or the Master of Laws (LLM) programs at UC Law SF.