Pacific Islands Forum

Pacific Islands Forum PIF
Pacific Islands Forum logo
English name	Pacific Islands Forum
Organization type	Regional cooperation
Seat of the organs	Suva , Fiji
Chair	changing annually
Secretary General	Meg Taylor
Member States	18 :  Australia  Cook Islands  Fiji  French Polynesia ( France )  Kiribati  Marshall Islands  Micronesia  Nauru  New Caledonia ( France )  New Zealand  Niue  Palau  Papua New Guinea  Solomon Islands  Samoa  Tonga  Tuvalu  Vanuatu
Associate members	Tokelau
surface	8,538,051 km², of which AUS : 7,741,220 km²
population	36 million (estimate, 2013), of which FROM: 23 million
Population density	4.2 inhabitants per km²
gross domestic product	1.694 billion US $ (estimate, 2013), of which AUS: 1.488 billion US $
Gross domestic product per inhabitant	US $ 47,051 (estimate, 2013), excluding AUS & NZL : US $ 2,941
founding	August 1971 (as South Pacific Forum)
Currencies	Australian dollar Cook Islands dollar Fijian dollars Kina Kiribati dollar New Zealand dollar Pa'anga Solomon Islands dollars Tala Tuvaluan dollar U.S. dollar Vatu
Time zone	UTC + 8 to UTC + 14
www.forumsec.org

Archive and library building in the complex of the secretariat in Suva

The Pacific Islands Forum ( PIF ; German Pacific Island Forum ) is a consultative forum for the island states of the Pacific with the aim of promoting cooperation in the political, economic and cultural fields.

The forum first met in August 1971 under the name South Pacific Forum in Wellington , New Zealand . The founding members were Australia , the Cook Islands , Fiji , Nauru , New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa (then Western Samoa). Nine other oceanic states followed. At the 30th forum meeting in 1999 in Koror , Palau , it was decided to rename it the Pacific Islands Forum in order to take account of the expansion of membership to states north of the equator .

Significant results of the forum are the 1985 negotiated Treaty of Rarotonga , the negotiation of various economic agreements and the 2003 deployment of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands . Due to its security policy activities such as the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons , the General Assembly of the United Nations has recognized the Pacific Islands Forum as a regional organization under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter . At the UN itself it is represented as an observer.

structure

Every year the heads of state and government of the forum states meet and discuss questions from the entire spectrum of political topics. These leaders' meetings form the highest decision-making body in the forum process. They take place annually in another Member State and may be a. accompanied by meetings of the Pacific ACP states and the so-called Smaller Islands States , a grouping of the small island states within the forum. Following the Leaders' Meetings , consultations with the Post-Forum Dialogue Partners have taken place since 1989 , which serve to intensify cooperation with the region. These are currently the People's Republic of China , the European Union , France , the United Kingdom , Japan , Canada , Cuba , Malaysia , the Philippines , Indonesia , India , Italy , South Korea , Thailand , the United States , Spain and Turkey .

In addition to the Leaders' Meetings , the forum process includes numerous other meetings at ministerial level. They are empowered to promote common policies independently in their respective areas of responsibility and to draft corresponding resolutions. The heads of state and government often only take note of the results of these meetings if they see no need for action of their own. The ministerial meetings are prepared in particular by further meetings at the speaker level.

The administrative arm of the forum is the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat , an - in contrast to the forum itself - an international organization based in Suva, Fijian . The predecessor of the Secretariat was a trade office founded at the 2nd Forum in 1972 in Canberra , Australia . It started work in November 1972. At the 4th Forum in 1973 in Apia , Samoan , the forum states signed a founding treaty under international law which, when it came into force, formed the formal legal basis of the office. 1991 and 2000, new contracts were signed respectively by the Commercial Office of the South Pacific Forum Secretariat and then from today's Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat replaced was. As far as the forum accepted new members, they also gradually joined the respective secretariat contract. In individual cases they were previously members of the office or secretariat.

The secretariat is headed by a general secretary. He is elected for a term of three years by the heads of state and government of the forum and can be re-elected once. The penultimate general secretary since January 2004 was the Australian Greg Urwin . After eight months of illness, he died in office on August 9, 2008 in Apia. In May 2008, he announced his retirement from politics and left the management of the business to his deputy. On the occasion of the 39th forum meeting in Niue in 2008, the heads of state and government of the Pacific Islands Forum elected the Samoan Tuiloma Neroni Slade as the new general secretary on August 21, 2008 . He took office on October 13, 2008. At their 45th forum meeting on July 31, 2014, the heads of state and government elected Papua New Guinea Meg Taylor to succeed Slade; she took office on December 4, 2014.

The secretariat essentially takes care of the coordination in the following areas:

• Development and economic plans
• Trade and investment
• Political, International and Legal Matters as well
• Company support

The forum and the secretariat are formally independent of each other. A contract signed at the 36th Forum in 2005 in Port Moresby , Papua New Guinea , provides for the merger of the two institutions, but it has not yet come into force.

The Inselforum is permanently represented at the World Trade Organization (WTO) through its office in Geneva . It also has trading offices in Auckland , Beijing , Sydney and Tokyo .

At the 39th forum meeting in Niue from 19 to 20 August 2008, the topics of fisheries, energy, trade and economic integration , climate change and transport, information and communication technology, health, education and good governance were discussed , building on the negotiations in Port Moresby . In particular, global warming and the rise in sea levels are of great importance in the Pacific region, so the 'Niue Declaration on Climate Change' was written. In addition, they agreed to support the Solomon Islands and Nauru, followed by talks about the radioactive contamination of the Marshall Islands from US nuclear tests.

Members

All 16 independent states of Oceania are members of the Pacific Islands Forum. The two French possessions of New Caledonia and French Polynesia have been associated members since 2006 and therefore have no voting rights. In September 2011, the U.S. suburbs American Samoa , Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands were granted observer status.

After the member state Fiji was controlled by a military government under Frank Bainimarama since a coup in 2006 , the other members of the Pacific Islands Forum decided unanimously at a meeting on January 27, 2009 in Port Moresby, by the rulers in Fiji by May 1 at the latest To demand the submission of a constructive plan for the country's early return to democracy in 2009. After this deadline passed, Fiji's participation in the forum was suspended on May 2, 2009. The chairman of the forum emphasized that this action was not directed against the residents of Fiji and that the country would remain one of the 16 members of the forum, but the current military government would be excluded from active participation. After holding parliamentary elections on September 17, 2014, which confirmed Bainimarama as Prime Minister, the forum lifted Fiji's suspension on October 22, 2014.

For a long time, the French Pacific regions were denied membership due to the forum's anti-nuclear weapons activities. New Caledonia and French Polynesia were able to join the forum in 2016 through increased lobbying in Australia.

Full members
Australia (AU)	Marshall Islands (MH)	Niue (NU)	Tonga (TO)
Cook Islands (CK)	Micronesia (FM)	Palau (PW)	Tuvalu (TV)
Fiji (FJ)	Nauru (NR)	Papua New Guinea (PG)	Vanuatu (VU)
French Polynesia  (PF)	New Caledonia (NC)	Solomon Islands (SB)
Kiribati (KI)	New Zealand (NZ)	Samoa (WS)
Associate members
Tokelau (TK)
observer
American Samoa (AS)	Guam (GU)	Northern Mariana Islands (MP)	East Timor (TL)
Wallis and Futuna (WF)	United Nations	World bank	Commonwealth Secretariat
ACP group	Asian Development Bank	WCPFC	International Organization for Migration
Abbreviations according to ISO-3166-1 coding list

General Secretaries

The post of Secretary General is equivalent to the post of Head of the South Pacific Office for Economic Cooperation until September 1988.

Surname	Period	Country
Mahe Tupouniua	November 1972–1980	Tonga
Gabriel Gris	1980-1982	Papua New Guinea
John Sheppard	1982 - January 1983 ( provisional )	Australia
Mahe Tupouniua	January 1983 - January 1986	Tonga
Henry Naisali	January 1986 - September 1988	Tuvalu
Surname	Period	Country
Henry Naisali	September 1988 - January 1992	Tuvalu
Ieremia Tabai	January 1992 - January 1998	Kiribati
Noel Levi	February 1998 - May 16, 2004	Papua New Guinea
Greg Urwin	May 16, 2004 - May 2, 2008	Australia
Feleti Teo	May 2, 2008 - October 13, 2008 (provisional)	Tuvalu
Tuiloma Neroni Slade	October 13, 2008 - December 4, 2014	Samoa
Meg Taylor	since December 4, 2014	Papua New Guinea

Forum meeting

In addition to the regular annual forum meetings, extraordinary meetings are also held as required, but these are not included in the official count.

Forum	year	Country	city
1. Forum	1971	New Zealand	Wellington
2. Forum	1972	Australia	Canberra
3. Forum	1972	Fiji	Suva
4. Forum	1973	Samoa	Apia
5. Forum	1974	Cook Islands	Rarotonga
6. Forum	1975	Tonga	Nuku'alofa
7. Forum	1976	Nauru	Aiwo
8. Forum	1977	Papua New Guinea	Port Moresby
9. Forum	1978	Niue	Alofi
10. Forum	1979	Solomon Islands	Honiara
11. Forum	1980	Kiribati	Tarawa
12. Forum	1981	Vanuatu	Port Vila
13. Forum	1982	New Zealand	Rotorua
14. Forum	1983	Australia	Canberra
15. Forum	1984	Tuvalu	Funafuti
16. Forum	1985	Cook Islands	Rarotonga
17. Forum	1986	Fiji	Suva
18. Forum	1987	Samoa	Apia
19th forum	1988	Tonga	Nuku'alofa
20. Forum	1989	Kiribati	Tarawa
21. Forum	1990	Vanuatu	Port Vila
22. Forum	1991	Micronesia	Palikir
23. Forum	1992	Solomon Islands	Honiara
24. Forum	1993	Nauru	Aiwo
25. Forum	1994	Australia	Brisbane
26. Forum	1995	Papua New Guinea	Madang
27. Forum	1996	Marshall Islands	Majuro
28. Forum	1997	Cook Islands	Rarotonga
29th forum	1998	Micronesia	Palikir
30. Forum	1999	Palau	Koror
31. Forum	2000	Kiribati	Tarawa
32nd forum	2001	Nauru	Aiwo
33rd Forum	2002	Fiji	Suva
34th forum	2003	New Zealand	Auckland
35th forum	2004	Samoa	Apia
36th Forum	2005	Papua New Guinea	Madang
37th Forum	2006	Fiji	Nadi
38th Forum	2007	Tonga	Nuku'alofa
39th Forum	2008	Niue	Alofi
40th forum	2009	Australia	Cairns
41st Forum	2010	Vanuatu	Port Vila
42nd Forum	2011	New Zealand	Auckland
43rd Forum	2012	Cook Islands	Rarotonga
44th Forum	2013	Marshall Islands	Majuro
45th Forum	2014	Palau	Koror
46th Forum	2015	Papua New Guinea	Port Moresby
47th Forum	2016	Micronesia	Palikir
48th forum	2017	Samoa	Apia
49th Forum	2018	Nauru	Yaren
50th forum	2019	Tuvalu	Funafuti
51st Forum	2021	Vanuatu

literature

• Henning Blatt: Pacific Islands Forum: An International Legal Approach to Institutionalism and Regionalism in Oceania . Carl Heymanns, Cologne 2011. ISBN 978-3-452-27616-2 .
• Stuart Doran: Australia and the origins of the Pacific Islands Forum . Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra 2004. ISBN 1-876534-24-9 .
• Yoko Ogashiwa: South Pacific Forum: Survival under External Pressure (PDF; 1.0 MB). In: Hiroshima Peace Science 22 (2000) pp. 45-73.

Web links

Commons : Pacific Islands Forum  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DSW Report 2013 - country database , accessed on May 15, 2014.
2. ↑ List of countries according to gross domestic product , accessed on May 15, 2014.
3. ↑ Except Cook Islands, Nauru and Niue.
4. ↑ Resolution 56/41 of December 7, 2001 and Resolution 57/37 of November 21, 2002.
5. ^ New Forum Secretary General Commences 3-Year Contract ( Memento of October 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ); PIFS press release (108/08) of October 9, 2008.
6. ↑ PNG's Dame Meg Taylor will be PIFS First Female Secretary General ( August 8, 2014 memento in the Internet Archive ); PIFS press release from August 1st, 2014.
7. ^ Statement by Forum Chair on suspension of the Fiji military regime from the Pacific Islands Forum ( Memento of October 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ); PIFS press release (21/09) of May 2, 2009.
8. ^ Statement by Forum Chair on lifting the suspension of Fiji from the Pacific Islands Forum ( Memento of October 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ); PIFS press release of October 24, 2014.
9. ^ Grant Wyeth: France in the Pacific: Growing Strategic Ties With Australia , thediplomat.com October 16, 2017.
10. ↑ Lisa Williams-Lahari: Statement in relation to the 51st Pacific Islands Forum meeting. In: forumsec.org. Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, June 3, 2020, accessed June 5, 2020 . 

Coordinates: 18 ° 9 ′ 1 ″  S , 178 ° 26 ′ 22 ″  E