Blue Pacific Pro Bono Collaborative

Australian law firms, Pacific law societies and lawyers use their collective experience and expertise to provide pro bono (unpaid) legal assistance to Blue Pacific Nations in:

• Strengthening the Justice Sector
• Enhancing Legal Capacity
• Fostering a Pro Bono Culture
• Supporting Law Reform
• Supporting Climate Adaptation and Resilience

The Blue Pacific Pro Bono Collaborative represents a comprehensive and coordinated approach to supporting enhanced access to justice and climate adaption and resilience, strengthening of law and justice systems, addressing unmet legal need, and supporting and further embedding pro bono culture and impact across the Pacific region. This initiative facilitates knowledge sharing and capacity development, and also promotes access to justice, stability, and community resilience in the Pacific, ultimately advancing shared security objectives and regional cooperation.

By working closely with Pacific Law Societies and Pacific lawyers to promote a systematic approach to pro bono legal assistance, the Collaborative is contributing to the development of a sustainable framework for addressing ongoing legal challenges and unmet legal need in the Pacific. Leading Australian law firms bring their pro bono experience to build out Pacific pro bono expertise and support with advice on structuring, regulating, insuring and incentivising pro bono legal work. This is a key element of the program’s sustainability and supports the local legal profession’s ongoing contribution to enhanced access to justice, climate adaptation and resilience. Through collaboration and knowledge sharing, the Collaborative is laying the foundation for long-term regional leadership and influence in legal matters, contributing to the overall resilience of the Blue Pacific.

AVI supports the Collaborative with the day-to-day management of the program including planning, coordination, risk and incident management, logistic support and pastoral care to secondees, monitoring, learning & evaluation, budgeting and advise on best practice in line with the UK Government, The Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) standards for international development programs.

The Pilot

In May-June 2023, nine Australian lawyers and eight Fijian lawyers were seconded to the Pacific Community (SPC), an regional development organisation owned and governed by 27 Blue Pacific country and territory members. The lawyers provided over 1,360 hours of pro bono legal support to critical climate and energy transition projects under SPC’s mandate through hybrid assignments which included a two week in-country component.

Scaling up

Following the success of the pilot, the Collaborative was awarded a grant from the UK Integrated Security Fund. The funding has enabled the Collaborative to scale up its activities in Fiji to support more partners in 2024. The financial support received from the UK Government has also enabled the program to recruit a Senior Legal Advisor in Fiji to support local engagement, ensure the program is not undermining commercial opportunities for local firms, support in-depth project scoping and facilitate key stakeholders’ engagement for pro bono lawyers on secondment. Read the funding announcement

In June 2024, the Fiji Law Society, supported by the Collaborative and the generous financial support of the UK Government, organised its’ inaugural Pro Bono Roundtable in Suva. The Roundtable sparked insightful conversations and confirmed the appetite for initiatives to strengthen and formalise pro bono practice in the country to better address the numerous unmet legal needs. The Collaborative will continue to work closely with the Fiji Law Society to support the establishment of a pro bono scheme.

The Collaborative has recently submitted a proposal to the British High Commission to renew its grant agreement to support the program scale up and geographic expansion to Samoa and Tonga. With the help of the embedded Legal Advisors in Fiji and Samoa, The Collaborative is now exploring other initiatives to support in this next phase. Some of the projects being scoped include legal clinics to improve access to justice for communities across Fiji, support to the Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence Learning Network moderated by SPC, support to the Disaster and Community Resilience Program (SPC) as well as legal training programs. Having consistent, local legal expertise at the heart of this program will ensure ongoing impact and sustainability through the life of the projects.

The Collaborative is also planning for the scale up of its climate adaptation and resilience arm in the lead up to COP31 and the expected role for Australia and the Pacific as hosts of this critical meeting.

In scaling up, the Collaborative will aim to offer climate-related pro bono legal services to locally-led and owned Pacific organisations. Based on initial region-wide consultations, available legal services will include practical legal solutions in support of the energy transition, climate adaptation and resilience; related legislative and policy reforms; legal support to NGOs and delegations in international climate negotiations; commercial legal advice to NGOs and social enterprises working on climate change; and legal education and research.  The Collaborative is seeking to diversify its funding sources to support the further development of its climate adaptation and resilience stream.