Recent challenges to nation-building in Kanaky New Caledonia

Abstract

"After significant decolonisation in the 1950s, New Caledonia’s destiny was reversed in the 1960s for reasons of French national prestige and strategic nickel resources. The lesson of the 1980s is that regression was a mistake. Today, everyone in the restricted New Caledonian citizenship of longterm residents has accepted self-government; they differ over the degree of separation from France, that is, the specific details of sovereignty. The exact legal boundary between enlarged autonomy and full sovereignty, especially in a globalising world that compromises even French independence (for example, the European Union, or multinational corporations), has yet to be determined. In March 2011, at a colloquium in Noumea that presented comparative perspectives on decolonisation, legal scholars suggested that so-called ‘reserved’ powers — which loyalists want France to keep — such as defense and public order, are not carved in stone in French law. Instead, they constitute bundles of administrative responsibilities, some of which are already shared, so the exact category of the country’s future status may be less important than the principles that local leaders bring to the negotiating table and find consensual ways to implement ..." - page 9