#2 – Encounters between young researchers and peacekeepers of the Earth

This meeting was organized as part of the cycle Young Researchers: Keeping the Peace with the Earth. It took place on April 20 at 11:30 am French time (8:30 pm New Caledonian time).

Meeting moderated by Emilie GAILLARD, general coordinator of the Normandy Chair of Excellence for Peace.

Thesis directed by Carine DAVID, Professor at the University of the French Antilles

Sylvine AUPETIT holds a doctorate in environmental law from the University of the French Antilles. She also holds a DESS in sustainable development of spaces and societies with strong constraints and a university diploma in adult education.

As a young professional, she participated in the creation of the Swiss association gaéa21. She was then in charge of the elaboration of the environmental code of the South Province, in New Caledonia, then she accompanied the instructing and enforcement agents for about ten years for its implementation.

Today, Sylvine works as a consultant and trainer in environmental law.

She is also a member of the Overseas Group and the Rights and Public Policy Commission at IUCN France, and a correspondent for the CIDCE in New Caledonia.

Bringing environmental law closer to reality in New Caledonia: Levers for improving the effectiveness of environmental legal norms in New Caledonia in favor of the sustainability of natural heritage

(Sylvine AUPETIT, Doctor of Environmental Law, University of the French Antilles).

Biodiversity erosion and climate change are well-known threats to the future of humanity. However, New Caledonia is a biodiversity hotspot exposed to heavy effects of global warming, which makes these issues especially acute. Their sui generis status within the French Republic grants New Caledonia and its provinces broad competences to build an environmental law adjusted to their sociological, anthropological and environmental realities. However, New Caledonian law is not (yet?) the perfect tool to “effectively” channel the uses of natural heritage.

Two avenues would, however, promote a better adjustment of legal prescriptions and the behaviors adopted by their recipients.  

The first concerns the ways in which local environmental law is developed. It is indeed a virtue of law to be able to trace its origin, unlike other tools of social control such as politeness or religion for example.  

The second track exploits another specificity of the law: that its violation may call for the implementation of a predictable penal arsenal and penal procedure.

Thus, this thesis addresses not so much New Caledonian environmental prescriptions as “secondary” norms: those that deal with its upstream -what leads to those prescriptions- and its downstream -what is done with those prescriptions. 

Thesis defended on September 22, 2020 at the University of the French Antilles