Yaoundé and Buea
12 November 2019
Legislative Whitepaper Submission: A Comparative Longitudinal Study of Special Status Arrangements - for Cameroon's Northwest and Southwest Regions
Dear Reader:
As Cameroon’s Parliament convenes this month for its last ordinary session for the year 2019, one of the key expectations that several constituencies around the country have for the session, is whether and how it will advance the recommendations from the recently convened National Dialogue on the Anglophone crisis. One of the key recommendations from the said Dialogue, was for the enactment of a regional Special Status for the affected Northwest and Southwest regions, which takes into account their historical specificities.
In this regard, we are pleased to share with you the firstmajor, longitudinal study of Special Status, Special Regional Autonomy, and Special Administrative Regions in countries around the world, conducted specifically to inform how regional Special Status arrangements may be crafted for Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest Regions. The core findings of this study are framed as submissions for a Legislative Whitepaper on Special Status arrangements, within the post-National Dialogue process.
This Legislative Whitepaper submission is the outcome of over five (5) months of research, analysis, and drafting, drawing from the fields of comparative political design, comparative constitutional law, resolution and mediation of territorially centred conflicts over regional specificities or autonomy – while constantly keeping in mind the specific drivers and context, that underly the Anglophone crisis, and the regional and group-based specificities that Special Status is intended to address. This product is the brainchild of a number of Cameroonian jurists, constitutionalists, publicists, and specialists in comparative politics and system design. Early in 2019, the group put in place a research project entitled “Constitutional Reform Options for Dialogue: to attenuate conflict in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions and to reform the practice of government between the central State and its constituent sub-national regions”.
The project’s stated objective was to increase the familiarity among Cameroon’s political and civic actors with various comparative constitutional models of sharing Government functions between central State institutions and the constituent territorial sub-national (Regions, Local Governments), including recourse to asymmetric devolution, meaning empowering Regions of a country differently within a Unitary State, which is increasingly resorted to when there is limited support for fully-Federal arrangements to accommodate those Regions’ specificities.
We take satisfaction in the fact that while conceived well in advance of the National Dialogue process (but in expectation of it), the project’s goals appear to have been on target, and that its research products may serve to inform Cameroonian policy-makers and the broader public, to give the Special Status arrangements a chance.
While the authors take responsibility for any errors of fact or appreciation that may be spotted in this research product, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to: (i) the countless number of Cameroonian academic, civic, political, and legal actors who have engaged in discussions and exchanges on this issue; (ii) the participants in the National Dialogue process who transparently shared information on its debates and proceedings; (iii) the myriad international organisations, foundations, and academic institutions who have placed online a wealth of information on the design of regional autonomy arrangements as a technique to resolve territorially-based conflicts; (iv) and to the entities that have supported our work materially. May their efforts and generosity find modest recognition in our work here presented.
You can read our publication that is closely linked to this one by following the link below:
>> Briefing Paper, Understanding Cameroon's Planned Regional Tier of Government
Kind Regards,
Author: Constitutional Options Project