5 monitoring of implementation) on a variety of subjects within their programme areas or specialisation.  SPREP, for instance, has produced model legislation on marine pollution prevention and several small countries, including Samoa, have adopted the model with changes to suit local conditions.    The circumstances of a small country like Samoa would be fairly typical of that pertaining in other small countries.  It is also worthwhile looking at the broader situation in the region to consider the general background and some of the law revision and law creation work being undertaken. Regional agenda   The School of Law of the regional University of the South Pacific (USP), which is based in Port Vila, Vanuatu, does not teach law reform as a subject.  However, the concept underlies the course on current developments in Pacific law which is taught in the fourth year.  The Law School maintains collections of the reports from the law reform commissions in Australia and New Zealand and those of the smaller island countries that produce such reports, and students have access to this material⁷.  All sixteen of the Pacific Island Forum States are partners in the development of the USP Law School.  It would seem appropriate and highly beneficial to all concerned to ensure that the Law School collection of this material is as comprehensive as possible and kept up to date, perhaps supplemented by occasional visits and lectures from interested law reform commissions and agencies of the region. There are a number of basic issues that would require the attention of Governments and their law reform machinery in almost every small island State:  examination of the mass of imperial laws that were introduced during the periods of political dependency, and consideration of whether they reflect the present needs of the country; examination of the relationship between the written laws, both introduced and locally enacted, and the unwritten customary law and common law; and in the case of a country like Vanuatu, examination of the relationship between the English introduced laws and the French introduced laws, both of which are theoretically of equal validity.  And there is always the huge problem and outstanding need in many countries of the revision and reprint of statutes.  Much work has been done, including the review and amendments to constitutions, but much more remains to be carried out. Constitution-making in the Pacific was part and parcel of independence.  Not only did constitutions register the fact of independence, they also established the framework for the exercise of public power.⁸  For many Pacific island States, the process for the making of constitutions, and their implementation, represented the first real exercise in national politics.  Australia and New Zealand have been close partners in the process, for many academic lawyers and other consultants to Pacific Governments have come from                                                 7 Information per Professor Don Paterson, Emeritus Professor of Law, School of Law, USP, Port Vila, Vanuatu, February 2004. 8 Yash Ghai, Constitution Making and Decolonisation, Law, Government and Politics in the Pacific Island States, 1988, Institute of Pacific Studies, USP