Le Meur, Oona

Oona Le Meur did her Undergraduate in Sciences-Po from 2010 to 2013 before moving to London and enroll in an MSc of “Law, Anthropology and Society” at the London School of Economics (LSE) under the direction of Prof. Alain Pottage. Her dissertation topic focused on the relationship between custom and customary law in New-Caledonia and was later published in the SOAS Law Journal. She did a second master in law and social sciences at the SOAS after that. This time she wrote on South Africa and the relationship between legal pluralism and gender equality through a specific case by the Constitutional Court in 2004 (the Bhe Case).

She started her PhD in Law in September 2015, under the direction of Prof. Louis Assier- Andrieu. Her research theme concerns the legal dimension of inherited and evolving identities. She focuses on customary law in New-Caledonia which is going through a vast transitional phase until a referendum in 2018 which will finally decide on the endnote of a long decolonisation process. The methodology chosen is the casuistic approach of the Kanaky customary law that is being elaborated through jurisprudence since a couple of decades. The prominent cases chosen will be thoroughly examined, including through an anthropological lense. The casuistic approach also involves extensive research fields in order to genuinely understand the social contexts, the underlying principles guiding conflits and their resolution, as well as the evolving configuration of a customary identity in construction.

Spécialités / Fields of Expertise : 

PhD (in the making)

• Customary Law in New-Caledonia: The role of Law for Identity, Sovereignty and Citizenship in a Society-Making/Nation- Building Process (Prof. Louis Assier-Andrieu)

Teaching

• Seminars of Comparative Constitutional Law, by Prof. Dominique Custos, Undergraduate, Reims Campus
• Assistantship to Prof. Rosemary Byrne in International Public Law, Graduate, Paris Campus

Event organisation

• Organization Committe of the Sciences Po Law School Graduate Conference : Thinking, Learning and Teaching Law, June, 14, 2016

Publications : 

Papers

• Customary Law and Custom in New-Caledonia: legal pluralism, citizenship and the External/ Internal sovereignty issue, 2(1) SOAS Law Journal (2015) 230
• Book Review: The Kanak Awakening: The Rise of Nationalism in New-Caledonia (Pacific Islands Monograph Series 27), by David Chappell, 28(1) The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs (2016) 251

Dissertations

• Legal Pluralism and Gender Equality in a Nation-Building Context Overview of the Bhe Case in South Africa (Prof. Kevin Heller, SOAS, 2015)
• Customary Law and Custom in New-Caledonia: legal pluralism, citizenship and the External/ Internal sovereignty issue (Prof. Alain Pottage, LSE, 2014)