Valmaine Toki is the Chair (at the time of appointment) and Pacific Member of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) and a Professor of Law, at Te Piringa, Faculty of Law, University of Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand. Toki was the first New Zealander and Māori appointed by the President of the UN Economic and Social Council to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, as the Indigenous nominee representing the Pacific, where she served two three-year terms.
Since 2022, Toki has served on the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, appointed as the first New Zealander and Māori by the President of the Human Rights Council. She holds a BA/LLB (Hons), LLM, MBA and a PhD. Her areas of teaching, research and writing lie within the recognition of Indigenous rights, and she has written extensively within this area. Her current book "Indigenous Rights, Climate Change and Governance: Measuring Success and Data" includes insights from a study completed in collaboration with the World Bank on projects that restore food systems to address the adverse effects of climate change.
Toki works extensively with a broad range of Indigenous issues, including State obligations and building on her work with FAO on fisheries, Indigenous marine tools and protection of kaimoana (seafood). She is active within the FAO Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems and a member of the Pacific Research Group (PRG).
She is a national of New Zealand.
