Abstract

Legislative drafting is a skill slowly developing in the Pacific today. This abstract identifies and records an update on the challenges to legislative drafting in Pacific island countries. Due to lack of information on legislative drafting in the Pacific, research was undertaken with the assistance of Parliamentary Counsel and other Pacific drafters. I also attended the second biennial meeting of the Pacific Drafters’ Technical Forum in October 2009 where more current challenges were discussed. My own experiences as a legislative drafter are also reflected in this abstract.
The outcomes of the abstract will show that whereas legislative drafting as a specialised skill is recognised by Pacific governments and interests have grown in pursuing legislative drafting as a career, the challenges faced by Pacific legislative drafters are commonly more diverse and complex. In addition to analysing some of these challenges, this paper offers some recommendations to combating them.