VOLUME 15 ISSUE 6 - CYPRUS CENTER FOR EUROPEAN AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

In order to understand the reasons behind the dispute over eligibility, and to grasp the complexities associated with the New Caledonia’s independence referendum, it is necessary to examine the historical origin of the referendum and the special status enjoyed by the Kanak native population under the international and French law. [...] 12 The Convention on Biological Diversity (1992), the (UNESCO) Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003), the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression (2005) and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (2007). [...] With regard to third states, according to Article 58 (1) and (3), in the EEZ, all states, enjoy, subject to the relevant provisions of this Convention, the freedoms of navigation and overflight and of the laying of submarine cables and pipelines, and other internationally lawful uses of the sea related to these freedoms; having due regard to the rights and duties of the coastal state and complying. [...] And the second was the Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet of 1997 which among others partitioned the Russian Federation fleet in Sevastopol and provided part of it to the Ukrainian Navy in exchange of the lease of the Sevastopol naval base. [...] On the contrary, the expansion and reach of the enosis movement, with the guidance and aggressive perseverance of the Church, posed the question to the Council, as one representative in Cyprus put it, of ‘advancement or retreat’.14 The final answer came with the burning 10 Ibid., 477.