In accordance with the role conferred on it in the Nouméa Accord, the University meets the specific educational and research needs of New Caledonia and endeavours to effectively support the country’s development. The LARJE plays a key role in this respect in the legal and economic domains. Because of the gradual mass transfer of the competences normally devolved to the French state (with the single exception of sovereign competences, which are subject to a referendum), diligent research is essential in these two domains.

Access to and knowledge of the law remains one of the key elements for a New Caledonian citizenship that is yet to be constructed. A survey of overseas law, that is, the search for a legal foundation for public and private actions in New Caledonia, includes both the identification of applicable law following the so-called ‘principle of speciality’ and the legal norms transfer models following the so-called ‘principle of assimilation’ or the principle of appropriation of external norms.

The liberation provided for by the Nouméa Accord raises the question of the resources that New Caledonia will have to generate for itself. We will study the different ways of emerging from a dependence economy system. New Caledonia remains a rich but fragile small economy, whose main sources of wealth are the exploitation of a non-renewable natural resource (nickel) and financial transfers from metropolitan France. The team’s approach here is to evaluate and support public policies through an integrated legal, financial, fiscal and economic reflection.

The laboratory thus bases its research on two principal areas:

• Natural diversity, cultural diversity and legal pluralism

• Legal and economic liberation