This project is designed to enhance educational opportunities for legal experts by developing online courses on environmental law and commercial law at the postgraduate level at the University of the South Pacific (USP) and to expand the Pacific Islands Treaty Series database. It was initially planned to develop courses on both environmental and commercial law simultaneously, but since global warming and environmental pollution caused by tourism are more pressing issues in the Pacific region, the project started with the development of environment law courses in fiscal 2006 and 2007. Then, in fiscal 2008, the final year of the project, the commercial law program was created.
When developing the commercial law program, researchers from the Australian National University and the University of Sydney drew up educational materials for four courses: Foreign Trade and Investment Law, Pacific Commercial Law, E-Commerce Law, and Banking and Finance Law. The project has also continued to collect data on laws and treaties applicable to the Pacific region since the previous fiscal year. Thanks to these efforts, the Pacific Islands Treaty Series database (http://www.paclii.org/pits) of approximately five hundred varieties of laws and treaties has been completed and disclosed to the public.
In the environment law program, educational materials were drawn up for course in Environmental Law and Policy, Comparative Environmental Law, Regional Environmental Law, and International Environmental Law. With the abovementioned commercial law courses, online educational materials for a total of eight courses were completed. The environmental law courses have already been assigned as a prerequisite for the postgraduate (master's degree) program. Three of these courses are provided by visiting lecturers to approximately 30 students each. In fiscal 2008, the project also held discussions with universities in Asia and Oceania aiming to realize joint lectures for the environmental law program, in collaboration with the United Nations University and the National University of Singapore. The plan was not fully realized during the project term, however, so the universities are currently preparing to start such courses in fiscal 2009 or later. The Pacific Islands Treaty Series database is expected to be used actively by legal experts both inside and outside the Pacific region and to serve as valuable resource material for USP. SPINF expects the online courses developed through this project to contribute to the enhancement of postgraduate-level legal education at USP, while playing a leading role in relevant fields in the Pacific region.