CPICL Hosted Seminar on Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property in the Pacific with Solamalemalo Dr. Hai-Yuean Tualima
On 27 August 2025, CPICL, co-sponsored by University of Queensland's Centre for Policy Futures, ARC Discovery Indigenous project on The past, present and future of Indigenous ethnobotanical knowledge and ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Success, welcomed Solamalemalo Dr Hai-Yuean Tualima for a seminar exploring the protection of traditional knowledge and intellectual property in the Pacific. Dr Tualima, a Senior Law Lecturer at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, is recognised for her expertise in custom, customary law, and heritage protection. Drawing on her PhD research in Samoa, she shared insights into how Talanoa Research Methodology can inform practical approaches to safeguarding traditional knowledge.
Her presentation, chaired by Associate Professor Allison Fish, came at a pivotal moment following the World Intellectual Property Organization’s adoption, in May 2024, of the Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge. This landmark treaty, concluded after 25 years of negotiations, creates new opportunities for Pacific peoples to strengthen the management of traditional knowledge and cultural heritage.
Dr Tualima emphasised that while there is strong appetite for new Traditional Knowledge and heritage protection, reforms need to be consistent with existing practices in the region, including cultural development. They need to operate alongside custom and customary law and support existing community expectations.
This seminar forms part of CPICL’s broader Legal Pluralism Program, with particular resonance for the stream Aspects of Legal Pluralism in the South Pacific. Through initiatives such as this, CPICL reaffirms its commitment to advancing research and dialogue on legal pluralism, supporting scholarship that bridges doctrinal analysis with socio-cultural realities and contributes to deeper understandings of law in context, both within the South Pacific and beyond.