Tēnā koutou, Halo olgeta, Tālofa lava, Kia orana, Mālō e lelei, Tālofa, Ni Sa Bula Vinaka, Noa’ia, Fakaalofa
lahi atu, Mālō ni, Håfa Ådai, Mauri, Lakwe, Ekamawir, and warm Pacific greetings

Call for Proposals

We invite paper proposals for a workshop on Pacific Legal Orders in a Changing World: Regional
Governance, Resilience, Transformation, to be held at Auckland Law School on 19–20 February
2026. The workshop seeks to explore how the Pacific region engages with, resists, reshapes,
and reimagines international law and governance in a time of global transformation.

Across Oceania, legal, political and development challenges – ranging from the climate crisis to
regional security, trade and investment, health, culture, and the protection of oceans –
intersect with longstanding Indigenous legal orders, colonial legacies, and diverse governance
forms. This workshop aims to foreground Pacific-centred understandings of international law
and governance while critically engaging the region’s place in broader global disruptions,
including rising unilateralism, fractured systems of multilateral governance, growing
geopolitical tensions, economic precarity, and ecological crises.

We welcome contributions on a wide range of topics in international law and governance
affecting the Pacific region, including but not limited to:
• Climate change and environmental governance
• Trade, finance, and development
• Geopolitics, regional security, and militarisation
• Decolonization and struggles for self-determination
• Nuclear disarmament, waste dumping, and environmental justice
• Public health, pandemics, and global health governance
• Oceans law and fisheries governance
• Cultural heritage, Indigenous knowledge, and intellectual property
• Human rights, women’s rights, and gender justice
• Migration, mobility, and climate displacement
• Regional and sub-regional institutions
• Interactions of constitutional law with regional and global governance
• The role of private actors, NGOs, and corporations
• Legal pluralism, Indigenous law, and non-state legal orders

We particularly encourage submissions that:
• Situate questions of law, governance, power and resilience in the Pacific within the context of global legal and political transformations
• Adopt innovative theoretical and methodological perspectives, including critical, interdisciplinary, and Indigenous approaches
• Reflect on Indigenous Pacific experiences, voices, and traditions of international legal ordering
• Critically reflect on Eurocentric narratives and models of international law, including the meanings of “law”, “governance”, and “resilience”

Submission procedure
Please submit the following to beatrice.tabangcora@auckland.ac.nz by 15 August 2025:
• paper title
• concise abstract – up to 500 words
• brief bio(s) of the author(s) – up to 200 words per author, including full name(s), affiliation(s), and contact details

Selected participants will be expected to deliver a 2,000–3,000-word paper by 1 February 2026.
Participants will be expected to read all papers before the workshop to encourage deeper discussion.

Selected participants will be invited to develop their papers into chapters for inclusion in a journal special issue or edited book following the workshop.

For inquiries, please contact:
• Beatrice Tabangcora – beatrice.tabangcora@auckland.ac.nz
• Guy Fiti Sinclair – guy.sinclair@auckland.ac.nz
• Sione Tekiteki – sione.tekiteki@aut.ac.nz