Oceans Governance is a 3rd year undergraduate course offered by the School of Marine Studies, USP that complements the 2nd year undergraduate course in “Law of the Sea”. Both courses offered by the School of Marine Studies are designed by the highly regarded fisheries legal expert, Mr Pio Manoa.
Oceans Governance promotes an understanding of how the international legal frameworks fit with national legal and governance frameworks to provide a rules based approach to oceans use. This means that as part of the course there is a detailed look at how the varied uses of the ocean are regulated and how more modern concepts like sustainable development and an eco-systems approach to natural resource management should be taken into account by decision-makers.
Major themes that have arisen throughout the semester include: the importance of consultation and due process for good decision making, legal concepts of sovereignty and sovereign rights, and the importance of the ocean and traditional rights for Pacific Island cultures. Our firm has been fortunate enough to coordinate and teach this Semester's class of 2019 and provide this update relating to the course and their progress that involved contributions from many individuals demonstrating the multi-disciplinary approach required for oceans governance.
The class of 2019 included students from all over the Pacific who all progressed well and during the semester were able to reflect on the multidisciplinary nature of Oceans Governance via regular lectures and tutorials as well as contributions from many esteemed and locally based experts.
The course was assessed via weekly online tests, a formal mid-semester test, essays, a final exam and a major project. The major project asked the students to analyse why a national ocean policy for a Pacific Island jurisdiction is important and a key aspect of this requires the students to design the consultative process to create a national ocean policy.
As part of this students must identify who should be consulted and think through practical and cultural issues that will exist for Pacific Island jurisdictions as they attempt to create and adopt a national ocean policy to guide good decision-making for the oceans that should be accepted by all stakeholders.
This process based approach to oceans governance reflects that the answers to complex questions of governance and resource use must be found via collaboration and consultation as well as recognising and raising awareness of citizen's rights in the oceans.
The course of Oceans Governance is aimed to assist in the creation of much needed “Marine Managers” for the Pacific. The School of Marine Studies succinctly explains the importance of Marine Managers:
“our graduates in Marine Management will have the necessary skills to become good decision makers in government agencies, NGOs, communities and in the private sector to define the political agenda regarding sustainable development and blue growth. Scientists have knowledge by typically limited authority to implement policies. Decision makers have power but generally lack specialised knowledge of the environmental problems or challenges that our oceans and resources are facing. At the SMS we strive to link science with policy making, bringing knowledge and power together to make informed decisions that can drive sustainable development in Pacific Island Countries.”
However, Oceans Governance is a big and challenging topic that is rapidly gaining more recognition as we face the effects of climate change that are unfortunately particularly felt in the Pacific region.
The course itself recognises the importance of, and prepares students to receive, a good understanding of various areas of law and legal frameworks including, but not limited to: international law relating to oceans, how international law and national law fit together, how rights to ocean spaces are created, and concepts like sovereignty and sovereign rights.
Over 14 weeks, lectures and tutorials were delivered in the following areas:
In addressing the above topics, we were fortunate to be joined by a number of individuals and experts who were essential due to the multidisciplinary nature of Oceans Governance.
These locally based experts provided lectures, tutorials or joined us for group discussions in the following areas:
The above individuals provided their valuable time and ensured that the Oceans Governance class of 2019 that included students from Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati and the US, will take away with them an enhanced understanding of the integrated and modern approach to good decision making for our oceans.
Most importantly this excellent group of students leave Oceans Governance aware that the solutions for their shared Pacific ocean must be found in the Pacific by Pacific Islanders, who must work with Pacific scientists and decision-makers in accordance with consultative processes. It was also interesting to note that some of the students attended recent meetings with the UN Secretary General armed with questions relating to the consequences of inundation, which, unfortunately they did not get the opportunity to pose.
As Mr. Sokimi explained to them in our recent group discussion the focus for all of them should be to improve the oceans from how they are now. Mr. Sokimi’s analogy was a good Pacific rugby one, as he explained that regardless of the ball they had been thrown to them, whether it was a hospital pass or not, each one of them must now try to do something with the ball and then provide a better pass to the person next in line to receive it.
Finally, all of the students of the course are committed and bright, and grasped the difficult legal and other concepts that they were thrown at them and acquitted themselves well. I would recommend any of them to employers in the region whether those employers are NGOs, government agencies, or part of the private sector.
Oceans governance students enjoying the field trip where the focus was traditional rights and approaches to management
With special thanks to Taholo Kami who kindly agreed to review the best Major Projects provided by the class of 2019
More information on School of Marine Studies, USP: