The Protection of the Ethnic Autonomy of Kanaks in New Caledonia

Abstract

THE PROTECTION OF THE ETHNIC AUTONOMY OF KANAKS IN NEW CALEDONIA Michael A. Ntumyt I. INTRODUCTION The law regarding the treatment of minorities and ethnic groups has become an important component in the comprehensive system that protects international human rights. This law recognises the right of ethnic groups in a multiracial state to retain and develop their language and culture. This concept of autonomy breaks through traditional notions about the state and ethnic groups by allowing collective rights to be vested in an ethnic group in the same way as they can be vested in the individual.I The sources of this growing area of law are derived principally from various international treaties that seek to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms. The most important of these treaties are the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, (including its Protocols) and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Polit- ical Rights. Both these documents have been ratified and acceded to by France. 2 Article 14 of the European Convention and article 2 of the International Covenant guarantee a number of individual as well as collective rights and freedoms, such as freedom from dis- crimination on the basis of sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Other relevant human rights treaties include the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the 1961 European Social t Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Papua New Guinea. I wish to express my gratitude to Gilles Lucazeau for providing me with French materials on the droit particulier, and Agnes Montanari and Ian Fraser for translating them. 1. For a detailed discussion of this concept, see Otto Kimminich, The Organiza- tion of Multinational States, 37 LAW AND STATE 7, 16 (1988). 2. France ratified the European Convention on 3 May 1974. M.J. BOWMAN & DAVID J. HARRIS, MULTILATERAL TREATIES: INDEX AND CURRENT STATUS (London Butterworths 1984). France signified its accession to the International Cove- nant on Civil and Political Rights on 4 November 1980. Id at 304.