Professor Donald Paterson. Professor Paterson is an Emeritus Professor at the University of the South Pacific. He established USP's law programme and has been instrumental in developing legal studies in the Pacific region. The title of his plenary is "The Dilemma of Custom in a Modern Legal System, as illustrated in island countries of the South Pacific".

Dr Michael Goddard. Dr Goddard is a social anthropologist with over 25 years experience researching in Papua New Guinea. He is currently working with the World Bank's Justice for the Poor project examining hybrid court structures in the Pacific. His most recent book is Substantial Justice: An Anthropology of Village Courts in Papua New Guinea. His will be speaking on "Three Histories of Daugo Island: Thoughts on Knowledge and Truth from a PNG Land Dispute". The abstract is below:

Courts of law in Pacific Island countries, particularly in the aftermath of the colonial period, have attempted to accommodate custom, and commonly hear land claims and land disputes under terms of reference acknowledging the wide variety of custom among the micro-ethnic parties in court. A corollary of this liberalism is that in theory they admit "traditional evidence" including legends and myths. Yet as courts of law they are required to apply some criteria of "proof" and to search for "truth" by examining the "facts". A long-running land case from Papua New Guinea raises interesting questions about what happens when oral history encounters these legal imperatives, and may help us appreciate why Pacific Islanders often do not regard a court's decision as closing the case.