About Blue Ocean Law

Blue Ocean Law is a Pacific-led law firm built by and for the Indigenous peoples of Oceania. We work to ensure that climate responsibility is clear, enforceable, and shaped by the leadership of those on the front lines of the crisis.

Climate change poses an existential threat to Pacific peoples. Rising seas, intensifying storms, ecosystem collapse, and the loss of land, culture, and self-determination are not future risks—they are present realities. We exist because the communities facing the gravest impacts of climate change have too often been excluded from the legal systems that shape global climate outcomes. We work from a simple truth: there is no climate justice without Indigenous leadership.

We are internationally recognized for our central role in the historic advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice on states’ legal obligations in respect of climate change. Working in close partnership with Pacific governments, civil society, and communities, our team helped design, build, and argue the case. In a unanimous ruling, the Court affirmed that breaches of climate-related obligations engage the general law of State responsibility, with real legal consequences.

Our team brings deep expertise in international law, human rights, and environmental justice, alongside intimate knowledge of Pacific Island legal systems, governance structures, cultures, and histories. Over years of sustained engagement, we have built trusted relationships across the Pacific—with governments, civil society, traditional leaders, scientists, youth movements, and communities—allowing us to operate across local, regional, and global arenas with precision, credibility, and care.

At our firm, law is not an end in itself. It is a tool—for accountability, protection, and repair. The Pacific is not merely a site of climate vulnerability; it is a source of legal innovation and leadership for the world. Blue Ocean Law exists to ensure that Pacific-led leadership reshapes the global response to climate change—now, and for generations to come.