From the quiet shores of Aotea (Great Barrier Island) to the echoing halls of the United Nations in Geneva, Professor Valmaine Toki has carried the voices of Indigenous peoples to the international stage. As a Māori legal scholar and tireless advocate, she draws on her own perspectives and lived experiences to fight for the 6.2 % of the world’s population who identify as Indigenous – peoples still confronting diverse forms of marginalisation, such as eviction, exclusion, and erasure. Her work gives those voices both presence and power on the international stage.

Valmaine Toki/© University of Waikato, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Between two worlds

Toki descends from Ngāti Rehua, Ngāti Wai, Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Whātua. Her upbringing reflects a delicate balance between city and country, between Māori identity and modern education. She grew up in Tāmaki Makaurau (Māori: the Auckland region), but maintained close ties with her whānau (family) on Great Barrier Island (Aotea) and in the North, where her father’s family originates.

From an early age, Toki was immersed in the cultural and spiritual world of the Māori. The importance of these roots cannot be overstated: The island, the marae (courtyard) and the network of whānau (family) are not simply the backdrop of her life; they constitute an active foundation for her thoughts and work on Indigenous law, belonging and justice. Like many Māori scholars, she inhabits two worlds: tikanga Māori (Māori customary law and philosophy) and Western legal systems. The first centres community, the connection to land and collective responsibility, while the latter allows her to navigate and reform national and international legal structures. She has turned this dual orientation into her strength. Even her name embodies this duality. “Valmaine” was chosen by her parents after the wife of one of her father’s friends, while “Marie”, her middle name, reflects her Catholic upbringing. Catholicism among certain Māori communities stems from 19th-century missionary activity in New Zealand. This combination of Māori heritage and Western/Catholic influences in her name mirrors the bicultural environment in which she grew up, one that would later shape her vision of law as an interface between different worlds.

Creating connections

Valmaine Toki holds a Bachelor of Arts (University of Auckland), a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) (University of Auckland), a Master of Laws (LLM) (University of Auckland), a Master of Business Administration (MBA) (University of Tasmania), and a PhD (University of Waikato). Her doctoral thesis explored how justice systems structured around tikanga Māori might better respond to the experiences of Indigenous communities within mainstream criminal justice. She is also a practising barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand.

Her writings frequently address the disproportionate representation of Māori as defendants and convicted individuals within the criminal justice system, drawing attention to the systematic inequalities and biases that lead to disproportionately high rates of Māori imprisonment. Toki advocates for alternative justice approaches, including Indigenous courts and therapeutic jurisprudence, which are designed to challenge these patterns. These initiatives aim not merely at reforming existing institutions but to re-imagine justice in a way that restores relationships and communities rather than perpetuating cycles of punishment.

Toki’s work is interdisciplinary and not confined to a single legal field. Instead, she creates connections between different disciplines and communities. Her research and advocacy cover a wide range of areas. These include the protection of Indigenous rights in international law, the development of alternative justice models, and resource management with a focus on Māori interests in fisheries and aquaculture. She also works to connect Indigenous and general legal systems, as well as local Māori contexts and international law.

International Representation and UN Leadership

Toki’s influence reaches well beyond Aotearoa. In 2011, she was appointed as an independent expert to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), becoming the first New Zealander and the first Māori to hold that position.  During her two terms in office, she brought Kaupapa Māori perspectives into key UN debates and reports. These perspectives are a framework rooted in Māori values, collective responsibility and the principle that Indigenous worldviews should guide research, policy, and advocacy. These included issues such as climate justice, protection of indigenous women against violence or Indigenous Peoples’ rights to data.

Later in 2022, she was appointed by the President of the UN Human Rights Council to the United Nations’ Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP). EMRIP is a subsidiary advisory body of the UN Human Rights Council, which provides expertise and advice on the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).  In July 2024, she was selected as Chair of EMRIP, again being the first Māori and New Zealander. As chair, Toki’s responsibilities include facilitating thematic studies, country engagement, and advice to the Human Rights Council, a platform she has used to push for Indigenous-centred approaches to pressing issues such as child removals, language rights, and climate change. Under her leadership, EMRIP has revitalised its engagement with states and Indigenous communities, prioritising research and advocacy that connect Indigenous rights to broader global challenges.

In her role at EMRIP, she oversees a body mandated to “interpret, clarify and provide advice on the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” In doing so, Toki contributes to shaping how international law understands the lived realities of Indigenous peoples. She once reflected during a UN session:

“The presence of Indigenous peoples in this interactive dialogue as peoples for the very first time marks a significant step forward in ensuring that our voices are heard and respected in spaces where decisions affecting our lives are being made.”

Later, in July 2025, she emphasized the breadth of these struggles, noting:

“All Indigenous issues intersect with our struggles, whether it’s climate change, access to direct funding, rights to lands, territories and resources, violence against Indigenous women, extractive industries, they all affect us.”

Her words cut through institutional diplomacy with clarity and conviction. “It’s important to remember,” she adds, “that Indigenous peoples have always been advocating for their rights.”

Law as Relationship

At the heart of Toki’s work lies tikanga, which to her means the correct or just way of doing things. In this sense, tikanga is not merely cultural heritage, it is jurisprudence in action. It informs how decisions are made, how relationships are maintained and how justice is restored.

Against this background, Toki examines how tikanga and other Indigenous legal systems can challenge or complement Western legal structures. Her research spans governance, climate justice and data sovereignty, all connected by the unifying theme of self-determination. This principle of self-determination, as the right of peoples to define their futures according to their own laws, threads through every stage of her work. Whether arguing for Indigenous courts, defending environmental rights, or shaping UN policy, Toki continuously returns to this foundation, namely that Indigenous communities must be decision-makers, not merely participants in the processes that determine the very laws that govern them and that directly affect their land and lives.

Only in 2011 did New Zealand formally adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and it has yet to implement its obligations into domestic law fully. Toki has repeatedly drawn attention to this gap between symbolic endorsement and practical realisation. For her, self-determination is a matter of lived experience. It means that communities have the authority to govern their lands, resources, and futures in accordance with their own values.

She thus argues that Indigenous rights are not about returning to the past but about reshaping legal systems and institutions for the future. As she writes in her most recent book, “Indigenous Rights, Climate Change and Governance”, the rights of Indigenous peoples to data, to space, including maritime and potentially extraterrestrial domains, and to governance frameworks will become increasingly critical in the decades ahead.

National and Local Engagement

Beyond her professional achievements, Valmaine Toki remains grounded in family, place and sea. Her roots on Aotea and her close connections to her whānau provide her with a sense of stability and purpose amid her global responsibilities. She has spoken of returning home as a way of reconnecting with what truly matters,  the people and land that give her work meaning. As such, she remains deeply involved in her home community. Until February 2023, she served as an elected member of the Aotea / Great Barrier Local Board, one of 21 local boards that make up the Auckland Council. In this capacity, she represented the Aotea community and advocated for the island’s residents and environment. This local engagement reflects her belief that Indigenous leadership must remain grounded in community realities, that international advocacy only gains legitimacy when it is connected to the people it seeks to serve.

Her dual commitment to Aotearoa and to the global Indigenous movement illustrates how self-determination operates at multiple levels: from whānau (family) and iwi (extended kinship group) to the international community.

Between two worlds

Toki’s professional life bridges Indigenous worldviews and mainstream legal frameworks, between the local and the global, the material and the spiritual. She seeks transformation rather than assimilation, asking how Indigenous systems can coexist with or even reshape existing ones and how law can recognise difference instead of erasing it.

Her appointment to influential international institutions is significant not only for her contributions and her own trajectory but also for what it represents: the inclusion of Māori and broader Indigenous perspectives in multilateral decision-making spaces from which they have long been absent.

Impact

Toki‘s contribution to Māori and Indigenous jurisprudence is twofold. First, she has advanced a robust theoretical framework for understanding how Indigenous legal systems function alongside state law. Secondly, she has shown, through advocacy and institutional reform, how those systems can be realised in practice. In an era defined by climate change and the digital transformation of governance, her work highlights that Indigenous knowledge is profoundly contemporary. It offers alternative ways of understanding sustainability, responsibility, and coexistence. As Indigenous communities worldwide face the twin crises of environmental degradation and social inequity, Toki’s example demonstrates how recognition and transformation can coexist, how local identity and global advocacy can reinforce each other rather than compete.

Conclusion

Professor Valmaine Toki’s life and work embody the concept of walking between worlds. She represents an inclusive, relational and forward-looking vision of law, recognizing that a society‘s strength lies in its ability to honour the diversity of its peoples and their different ways of knowing.

Through her work, Toki connects local Indigenous spaces with global UN fora, showing how Indigenous legal thinking can transform international policies and human rights frameworks. In doing so, she provides not only a new model of leadership but a vision of a world in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous legal systems of law cannot only coexist with mutual respect, but also mutually enrich one another – a vision as vast as the ocean that connects her island home to the rest of the world.

Further Resources:

• Professorial Lecture by Professor Valmaine Toki, “Indigenous Rights – Challenges” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-lS_sds1kU
• Weaving Waters – Episode 1: Indigenous academics: weaving knowledge https://open.spotify.com/episode/3BShA0p1skooJocpbKBNct
• Valmaine Toki/Raman Durgeshree. “Indigenous and minority activism under the United Nations.” International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 32.2 (2024): 306-324.