THE GAP BETWEEN GLOBAL THINKING AND LOCAL LIVING: DILEMMAS OF CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN

STEVEN RATUVA University of Auckland

In a watershed event on 27 February 2010, the Nauru voters overwhelmingly rejected a major constitutional reform initiative in a referendum which was meant to reform and stabilise a lethargic and corruption-ridden political system and rejuvenate a languid economy in the wake of the collapse of phosphate production, the mainstay of the economy. The failure of the referendum temporarily stalled but did not permanently end the reform process. Nevertheless, the political and psychological impact on the Nauru community of 10,000 people was deep and the implications are just beginning to sink in. The constitutional reform was instigated in 2004 by a group of young reform-minded politicians who were determined to exorcise Nauru, once the richest country in the world per capita, of poor political governance and economic mismanagement. This was the very first United Nations Development Program (UNDP) sponsored constitutional reform in the Pacific region, as well as the very first constitutional reform to be carried out in the Pacific through a referendum. While there was consensus that reform was needed urgently, there were differences as to what was to be changed and how changes could be made. This article argues that these differences need to be understood in the context of the fundamental differences between two major development discourses: on one hand, the global discourse represented by UNDP and its “international best practice” aphorism; on the other hand, the local Nauru community and its ways of knowing, shaped by years of colonial control and cultural degradation. In the era of contemporary globalisation, the interplay between the local and global often assumes syncretic and multiple forms such as homogenisation, hybridisation, accommodation and contradiction (Dore 1985, Hall 1997, Hannerz 1990, Huntington 1993, Mathews 2000, Scholte 2000, Tomlinson 1999). The incorporation of Nauru into the world system was through three phases of colonialism—German, Japanese and Australian—which were profoundly disruptive and transformative. The Nauru colonial experience was traumatising and etched a deeply embedded sense of alienation, anguish and cynicism, and a deep distrust of outsiders. It is precisely in the context of these conditions that we need to understand the contemporary Nauru sense of place as they engage with outside global forces.

241 242 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru

Based on the author’s fieldwork in Nauru in December 2010, this article examines the process of constitutional reform in Nauru with emphasis on the gap between the global discourse of “international best practice,” espoused by the UNDP to guide and justify the constitutional reform process (UNDP 2006) and the Nauru cultural ways of knowing. More specifically it focuses on how these relationships were played out either in manifest or latent ways and how they impacted on the results of a referendum. In the next section, I explore some issues relating to the Nauruan sense of the local and the nurturing of resilience and resistance in the face of globalisation. This is followed by a discussion of the global notions in the form of the UNDP policy discourse and its hegemonic tendencies. How the two distinct cultural forces interacted with and shaped each other is explored in the following section on constitutional reform. Finally there will be discussion of some local-global dilemmas resulting from the six reform steps that led directly or indirectly to the failure of the referendum and thwarted hopes for a more sustainable and better future for this smallest republic in the world. UNDERSTANDING THE NAURUAN SENSE OF LOCAL AND PLACE To fully appreciate the Nauruan sense of place we need to situate it in the broader framework of their colonial and post-colonial experience. Nauru, an isolated single island of 10,000 people, went through years of external control first by the Germans from 1888 to the end of the First World War when it became a League of Nations Mandate jointly administered by Britain, Australia and New Zealand after Germany’s defeat (Tabucanon and Opeskin 2011). Nauru was occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War after which it became a United Nations Trust Territory as a Class C Mandate under the joint responsibility of Britain, Australia and New Zealand with Australia as the main administering power. Nauru became independent on 31 January 1968 (Viviani 1970). Colonial domination took its toll on the previously isolated and culturally distinct population (Tabucanon and Opeskin 2011). For instance, after the First World War about 20 percent of the island’s population succumbed to the influenza epidemic (Davidson 1968: 145). In 1942 the Japanese deported more than half of the population to Truk in the Federated State of Micronesia where they had set up their military base (Hughes 2004: 3). Only 40 percent of the 1200 deportees survived the ordeal of slave labour, disease and starvation. Among the survivors was Hammer De Roburt, who became the first upon independence. These experiences were traumatising and left deep scars on the collective consciousness of Nauru’s people. However, the end of the war did not end their sense of exploitation either as they realised that they were not Steven Ratuva 243 getting a fair return in terms of royalties for the phosphate mined from their land. Although the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand as administering authorities were obligated under the trusteeship agreement to safeguard the interests of the Nauru population and “promote their economic, social, educational and cultural advancement”, the level of royalties per ton was low in relation to the sale price and, worse still, Nauru phosphate was significantly under-priced relative to the world market price (Hughes 2004). In 1960 the royalties received by Nauru was only 2.8 percent of the value of the annual phosphate produced, evidence that Nauru was subsidising New Zealand and Australian farming (Weeramantry 1992). In the 1950s, in recognition of this anomaly, the people of Nauru made their dissatisfaction clear to the United Nations triennial visiting missions as well as by petitioning the Trusteeship Council to express their rejection of the idea of being paid on the basis of needs rather than rights. In other words, they demanded that they had the right to be paid the market price rather than being paid in accordance with what the administering authorities determined they needed. In 1964, after negotiations, the royalties increased to 7.6 per cent of the value of the phosphate. However, further attempts to increase the royalties and control interest in the ownership of the company were resolutely rejected (Weeramantry 1992). It was not until Independence in 1968 that Nauru was able to exert control over its resources and a combination of sustained production and high world prices for phosphate generated hitherto unknown wealth for Nauru (Tabucanon and Opeskin 2011). For instance, between 1968 and 2001 it was estimated that earnings through export totalled around AUD$3.6 billion which amounted to $50,000 per capita, making Nauru second only to Saudi Arabia as the richest country in the world (Hughes 2004). However, much of this wealth disappeared as phosphate reserves dwindled and acute mismanagement and corruption wiped out financial reserves (Connell 2006, Toatu 2004). This was unexpected and traumatising for many of Nauru’s people who had no idea what the causes of their impoverishment were (Quanchi 2007). Another matter that tested the Nauruan sense of resilience was the resettlement proposals in the 1950s and 1960s. Among the options suggested were Laucala Island in Fiji, Woodlark Island in Papua New Guinea, and the Australian islands of Fraser, Prince of Wales, and Curtis. One of the reasons why the resettlement proposals were rejected was because the Nauru people feared that relocation would lead to the disintegration of their close knit community and loss of their culture already damaged by the terrible excesses of colonial rule (Tabucanon and Opeskin 2011). Despite the gravity of their situation the Nauru people could not imagine being physically and culturally uprooted from their ancestral land. 244 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru

The collective experience of depopulation from epidemics, of deportation and dislocation caused by the war, of resource exploitation by foreigners, and of the sudden disappearance of their wealth produced a sense of anxiety among the Nauruan people and strengthened their resolve to ensure the survival of their community and collective identity in the midst of adversity (Hughes 2004, Quanchi 2007, Tabucanon and Opeskin 2011). A new surge in local resilience and suspicion of many things foreign has developed as they redefine their place and their local identity in the contemporary world. Instead of permanently fracturing the Nauruan notion of place, colonial experience had actually reconfigured it, made it more resilient and durable as a means of self-preservation. In this regard Huffer and Rakuita (2008) have made the point that while colonialism may have transformed basic institutions in the Pacific, it had failed to neutralise certain inherent values and symbolisms which connected people to their cosmology. An example was the durability of the notion of “place”. They argued that “the legacies of colonialism and neo-colonialism” had “largely been unsuccessful at replacing place-based with space-based thinking” (Huffer and Rakuita 2008: 7). To Huffer and Rakuita, place-based thinking refers to identification with a familiar local land area with a defined boundary and associated cultural values, sense of ownership and identity. Words (often cognate forms) used in Pacific communities to denote ‘place’ are: Fijian vanua, Aotearoa whenua, Tongan fonua, Samoan fanua, Maohi Nui/Tahitian fenua, West Kwara‘ae (Malaita) fanoa, and Kiribati te aba. In contrast, space-based thinking refers to the notion of an “empty” world without any defined boundary and distinctive cultural characteristics, and thus subject to external occupation and commodification. Huffer and Rakuita (2008) claimed that this notion of a boundless and “ownerless” universal space provided one of the moral justifications for colonial annexation. The strong sense of Nauru’s ethno-nationalism, built around their sense of place, is interpreted in different ways by others. Some foreigners working in Nauru with whom I spoke interpreted Nauruan community pride and independence, in their words, as “arrogance” and “unfriendly”. Nauruan’s sense of loyalty is first and foremost to their matrilineal-based kin groups. Kinship defines socio-cultural relations and there are 12 named clans: Eamwit, Eamwidumwit, Deboe, Eoaru, Emea, Eano, Emangum, Ranibok, Eamwidara, Iruwa, Irutsi (extinct) and Iwi (extinct). Apart from the clan boundaries, there are administrative divisions consisting of 14 districts divided into eight parliamentary constituencies which are used as cultural markers of sorts. Despite the tragedies of their past history, the Nauru people continued to sustain a community that was firmly rooted in the land and kinship while adopting new strategies as they engaged selectively and cautiously with outside Steven Ratuva 245 cultures. The land provides physical nourishment, cultural identity and sense of socio-spiritual validation to being Nauruan.1 The desecration of this sacred link through phosphate mining undermined their sense of identity, which in turn aroused deep anguish that progressively worsened over time.2

Political Instability The instability of the political system had arisen from factional political interests which used the no-confidence provision in the Constitution without restraint to change the president and government. During the 42 years since Independence in 1968 there have been 36 changes in government, on average a new government after every 1.16 years. Since 1977 there have been 30 motions of “no confidence” and 13 of these had passed. Perhaps the most changes were in 1997 when Nauru had four different presidents within four months. There was a brief period of political stability following the election of a reformist politician as President on 23 October 2004 through a snap election with the support of 15 parliamentarians out of 18. That government was uniquely able to serve the full three-year term. The President and his group of reformists were re-elected in August 2007 but fractures within the group led to a successful vote of no-confidence in December 2007 which saw ’s ascent to power. Not long after there was a series of destabilising events including an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against the government and the resignation of the Speaker. This was followed by a stalemate when three parliamentarians declined nominations for the position of Speaker. Things got worse when nine government parliamentarians were suspended by the new Speaker for un-parliamentary behaviour while he was delivering a statement on a decision. In the absence of the nine parliamentarians, controversial amendments to the Citizenship Act were made and the Chief Justice, a Fijian, later declared the amendments invalid. Consequently, without any other way out of the impasse, the President declared a state of emergency and dissolved parliament and called for a snap election eight months later on 26 April 2008. Marcus Stephen was returned as President but two electoral petitions were filed in court questioning the validity of the election which were dismissed. Parliament was dissolved again on 20 March 2010 as a result of attempts to remove the government and the election, due to be held in 2011, was brought forward by a year. Again the opposition tried twice to oust the government: the first attempt on 17 February 2010 failed and, before the second one was considered by Parliament, the president advised the Speaker to dissolve Parliament on 13 March 2010. This led to the election in April 2010 which saw the re-election of Marcus Stephen, a former Commonwealth Games weightlifting gold medallist. 246 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru

These frequent political changes impacted on the people’s sense of community and undermined their trust in the formal political process. A politician told me how much he had noticed the increase in people’s cynicism about politics over the years. This instability at the national level may have strengthened people’s identification with their local community and sense of independence and resilience. The historical experience of Nauru, compounded by the continuing political instability and economic crisis, has profoundly influenced local sentiments. The voters’ resentment and antagonism were apparent in the results of the reform referendum. Any attempt to touch on sensitive issues such as land reform was bound to strike raw nerves and evoke strong emotions.3 The reform process failed to take into account these social realities by not actively promoting local ownership of it in a sustained way. Instead it was largely driven by the objectives and approaches emanating from the Fiji-based UNDP. THE UNDP AND THE GLOBAL DISCOURSE On the other side of the divide is the United Nations which sees its role in constitution-making as a critical component of its work on the rule of law, the focus being on both the “process” and “substance” which purported to promote “national ownership and support for inclusive, participatory and transparent processes” (UNDP 2006). These principles are deemed to be universally applicable in any political or cultural context anywhere in the word. It is assumed that normative values, such as transparency, inclusivity and universal participation are trans-cultural in appeal and application. While the UN has overseen a number of constitution-making projects, Nauru was the very first Pacific state where the UN was involved in constitutional reform and was seen as providing a test case for constitutional reform in a small island state. UNDP’s role in overseeing the reform gave it significant power and control, working in close collaboration with the Nauruan Parliament represented by the Constitution Reform Committee (CRC) of ten parliamentarians, to co-ordinate and administer the review process. UNDP provided the consultant who conceptualised the process as well as technical and managerial support. Liaising with the CRC, UNDP supervised the use of US$300,000 provided by the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDF), which provided the major source of funding (UNDP 2011). Ideologically, UNDP often uses its global status and image of impartiality as a way of generating universal consent and global legitimacy for its projects (Bernabeu 2007). The UNDP’s proclaimed impartial status means that it is in a position to deploy a “one size fits all” reform template that does not recognise cultural and political diversities in any country in the world, despite varying conditions.4 Steven Ratuva 247

From the UNDP perspective, the solutions to these Pacific problems require an equally universally applicable template:

[T]he cooperation of the executive, judiciary, legislature, effective legal systems, law enforcement and civil society to underpin sustainable development, economic growth, environmental and social stability and security and human rights for all across the Pacific... and integrated decision making across all sectors at both regional and national levels.5

Of interest here is the absence of local culture and communities, which are often placed outside the rubric of the local state system and civil state organisations — CSOs. The focus is on institutional processes and formal procedures rather than people in their social and cultural place. The UNDP’s notion of “global democratic best practice”,6 consistently used as a moral justifier and political legitimiser, refers to universal ethical values such as human rights, gender equality, inclusiveness and people participation (UNDP 2010). How these apply to the local context or how the local community might interpret and react to them in Nauru were not part of the project prescription and were regarded as the contribution of the local project partners. At the conceptual level, the Nauru reform was to be “inclusive, open and [reflective of] global democratic best practice in constitutional review processes” designed to achieve the goal of “a stable, trustworthy, fiscally responsible government with transparent, accountable parliamentarians, cabinet and public service” (UNDP 2006: 1). These goals were part of the social engineering process to reform the formal state and government structure. Again there was little if any explicit provision for improving community livelihood, an issue raised with me by a number of people in Nauru. The UNDP did not provide any reform template that was specifically in response to the particular historical realities of Nauru or geared towards the local Nauru reality of the present. A basic assumption was that the Nauru people like anyone else needed to adapt and conform to the universal UNDP reform principles, rather than the other way around or even a hybrid approach sensitively synthesising important aspects of both. CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM The Nauru constitution had only been amended once since Independence on 31 January 1968. This was on 17 May 1968. In 1971, Hammer DeRoburt, the first President, proposed changes to the constitution but nothing eventuated. In 1985 another notice of motion for a constitutional review was given but then withdrawn (McDowell 1986). Yet on 14 October of the same year a similar motion was passed by Parliament, calling for the establishment 248 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru of a constitutional convention but again this did not go far. Meanwhile a number of cases were heard by the Supreme Court of Nauru (SCN) regarding constitutional challenges and interpretations. Not until 2004 was there a major initiative to amend the constitution. This constitutional reform was to be part of a broader political and economic 25-year strategic plan in the form of the National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS) aimed at building “a sustainable quality of life for all Nauruans” and achieving “a stable, trustworthy, fiscally responsible government with transparent and accountable parliamentarians, cabinet and public service” (Government of Nauru 2005). Constitutional reform was seen as the major mechanism to achieve these optimistic ideals. Earlier, in 2004, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) had carried out a Legislative Needs Assessment (LNA) and somewhat later UNDP, with funding from the UNDF, facilitated the constitutional review process aimed at improving capacity building of governance institutions including Parliament. The project was concluded in March 2010. The actual reform process started in July 2006 and involved six steps as shown in Table 1.

STEPS 1 AND 2: Manufacturing Consent through Public “Awareness” and “Consultation” Based on Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, the phrase “manufacturing consent” used by Herman and Chomsky (1994) specifically focuses on how dominant views and ideologies are propagated, most visibly by the media to shape public opinion. However, the Herman and Chomsky thesis assumed that both the media and the society it operated in (i.e., the United States) were culturally compatible. This was not so in the case of Nauru where a Western-style media was used in a largely post-colonial cultural context. The two initial phases of the reform, “awareness” (Step 1) from July to August 2006 and “consultation” (Step 2) from October to November 2006, were meant to increase the Nauru people’s understanding of their Constitution and of the need for constitutional review. The first phase mainly employed the media and the second was based on community visits. The relevance of the notion of manufacturing consent in this case is more to do with the deliberate deployment of different tactics to shape public opinion in a small island community where modern communicative logistics and strategies were not well suited to the local people’s sense of information validation. This was essentially a one way process because the government controlled all the media, including the radio station, newspaper and television, and naturally it was in a hegemonic position to unilaterally determine the contents and method of delivery. There were no alternative Steven Ratuva 249

Table 1. Steps of the Nauru constitutional review process. Sources: Nauru 2006, UNDP 2011. 250 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru sources of information except information supplied at the community level by civil society organisations. The director of the media services, an Australian, primarily used mainstream public relations methods, such as daily news, government statements and interviews with members of the CRC, and directly urged the people to vote for the referendum. An opportunity for people ring up and make their views heard was provided through talk-back shows. The broadcasts were in both English and Nauruan. More or less the same format was used by the local television station. One of the major drawbacks was that both local radio and TV had limited coverage on the island because of the damage caused to the transmission tower by a forest fire a few days before (Le Roy 2006). In any case, many households did not have television and radio sets and there was no established culture of using these modern technologies for communication. People still relied on daily and informal word of mouth for information. What people heard over the radio or saw on TV would be relayed around the island by word of mouth. Because of the lack of a standard written Nauruan, all the written materials were in English. Three billboards were put up and a total of 5219 leaflets were produced and distributed. The Australian Government did its part by funding the printing and distribution of 1000 copies of the Constitution, and the head of the Australian mission made public statements urging the Nauruans to endorse the constitutional amendments. Altogether nine local staff and two Australian consultants (a legal expert and a public relations expert) carried out the awareness programme. It was not easy to find the right people, who would ideally “have good communication skills, computer literacy, good organisational skills, ability to comprehend and explain complex material, ability to take initiative and to work well in a team, ability to work hard and meet deadlines, and proficiency in Nauruan and English [were] the criteria used to select the local team” (Le Roy 2006: 10). Nevertheless, a team was put together. One of the criticisms was that these people did not have any proper training and, because they were necessarily mostly young people, older people in the community did not take them very seriously.7 This was not surprising in a culture where increasing age is intrinsically linked with increased knowledge, authority and status. Favouring the use of the English language over the local Nauruan language exacerbated what Brown (2004: 200) has referred to as the “epistemological gap” or divide “between two ways of reasoning”. There were different modes of interpreting media representations. The state had faith in its technical ability to deliver messages but people responded in diverse ways, often with a mixture of suspicion, complacency and mild endorsement. The use of the media blitz was something new and provoked a sense of aggression and distance. Some people complained of the psychological intimidation they felt. Steven Ratuva 251

However, within the broader framework of the transmission-reception relationship, the major challenge was how the information reached the population at large and how the texts were processed, interpreted and understood by the public in the context of what Hall (1980) categorised as “dominant,” “negotiated” or “oppositional” modes of reception. In other words, was the awareness programme seen as part of the government’s hegemonic stance in controlling information and using it as a means of domination, or were people given a chance to arrive at a negotiated meaning, or did the programme create opposition as people became conscious of their own ideological domination and subaltern position in the process? From discussions with people, I gathered that the impact was not as directly positive as the state intended and later claimed. In a community with strong communal and kinship bonds and where social communication was part of kinship networks, the validity of information was judged not by the presentation of the contents but by the reliability and legitimacy of the messenger. The messenger can become more important than the message itself. Messengers are not only bearers of information but more than that they help consolidate relationships and give the message more authority and legitimacy. In Nauruan cosmology, the contents of the message cannot be isolated and transmitted independently of the messenger but rather the two are inseparably part of a communicative process. The extent of the gap was widened by the continuing distrust of the government because of long experience of its failed investments, corruption, continuing power struggles, instability and poor governance. The reform came to be seen by some as a conspiratorial government imposition resulting in apathy and withdrawal of active participation. While the first step was largely media driven, the second step (public consultation) was focused on community engagement. The consultation team, consisting of seven Nauruans (some of whom were involved in the first step) and the two Australian consultants, carried out the public consultations which involved community meetings where the team was to explain to the public the contents of the Nauru Constitution and impress upon them the need for constitutional reform. For many Nauruans, the exercise was very useful because for the first time they were exposed to the knowledge that they actually had a constitution, as well as the role of the constitution and how it impacted on their daily lives. This was empowering knowledge for a society where there was a significant gap between the state institutions and the community, and where serious civic education had not really taken place. Altogether 700 people attended 40 consultations with attendance ranging from five to 40 people per consultation over a six-week period from August to November 2006 (Balm and Le Roy 2006). 252 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru

Just as in the first phase, there were once again communication problems between the public consultation team and the community. The consultation format called for small group discussions under the direction of local facilitators conducted in the Nauruan language. The consolidated views were translated into English and then discussed in the major plenary session conducted in English. The use of the English language to satisfy the two foreign consultants posed two problems: the clarity in communicating local knowledge and the intention of local ownership of the change process. Furthermore, the classroom-like pedagogy deployed did not take into consideration the socio-cultural paradigm for communicative engagement in the local communities. For instance, as in Step 1, the notion of the messenger being a validating agent of the message was overlooked. Most of the consultation team members were relatively young civil servants and members of civil society organisations. This did not go down well with community elders who felt that those involved in such important work, if it were to be fully accepted, should be of reasonable maturity. Being advised by young people to believe in and do something foreign to them was not considered culturally appropriate. The common response was silence at the meetings and later expressions of dissatisfaction through informal gossip. Another technique was to pretend to go along with the wishes of the consultation team by nodding and affirming loudly while inwardly harbouring opposition. The few who spoke English responded argumentatively on behalf of the “silent majority”. An evaluation of the process by an independent consultant suggested the use of a more culturally friendly pedagogical approach such as Participatory Learning Appraisal (PLA) in such a situation (UNDP 2011). While in theory the intent and application of the term “consultation” was laudable, the reality turned out to be a hegemonic encounter where the consultation team determined the contents and approach. The term consultation itself came to connote imposed ideas, principles and values which had to be discussed with the local community to gauge their responses, whether positive or negative as a way of legitimation. There was an unequal power relationship where the state decided and defined the agenda even before consultation. There was no dialogue and participatory engagement to empower the community and provide a base for local ownership of the process. None of the local members of the team was a qualified translator or legal expert who could competently explain technical matters in Nauruan. They were mostly high school and primary school leavers who had been working as civil servants or members of civil society organisations. Their tasks called for a combination of legal, constitutional, political, linguistic, educational and cultural expertise for which they had limited qualifications. They were to translate the constitutional provisions from English to Nauruan (despite Steven Ratuva 253 the absence of any written material in the Nauruan language), explain to people the meaning of the provisions and the reasons for the amendments, and discuss with them the political implications of them all. The role of the two Australian consultants was to intervene when the local team members could not respond satisfactorily to questions. Some team members told me that they were fully aware of their own deficiencies but there was no other choice since they were the best the country could produce and they felt that it was their patriotic duty to carry out their responsibilities. The members of the community also were cognisant of these deficiencies and the superficiality of the process. A community leader joked that it was like “the blind leading the blind” and “fools teaching fools”. The chances of information being successfully imparted by those not proficient in the subject, using a language in which both the local consultation team and the local community were not competent, was highly questionable. This was a crucial phase in the reform program because it was intended to transmit information as well as transform political consciousness. Its failure to inform and transform helped to create more doubts within an already suspicious community. Another important issue was the question of representativeness of the views captured in the consultations. Often only certain educated and informed individuals contributed to the discussions on behalf of others. In Nauruan culture, elders are considered the guardians of sacred knowledge and wisdom and their voices are representative of the collective will. Because most did not understand English and even the interpreted legal concepts and arguments, they were marginalised outside the communicative circle, thus severely compromising their influence within the community. It was clear that the consultation team was driven by the desire to fulfil the requirements of the reform plan as expected by the project objective within the specified time and budget. Whether the community absorbed and understood the contents and implications of the contents became a mere secondary consideration. There were no monitoring or feedback mechanisms to determine the effectiveness of the community consultation. It was assumed that Steps 1 and 2 were very successful because of few verbalised criticisms. In the Nauru culture, rejection is not readily verbalised but could be projected through silence and allusive expressions.

STEPS 3 AND 4: Legitimising Mechanisms: The Constitutional Review Commission and the Constitutional Convention To implement Step 3 three prominent people were appointed as members of the Constitutional Review Commission (henceforth Commission). They were Ruby Thoma (the Commission chair), a prominent woman politician 254 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru and community leader; Leo Keke, a local lawyer; and Dr Guy Powles, a New Zealand constitutional expert. The Commission collected and analysed the reports from the 40 public consultations, 40 written submissions and other materials they had gathered, and synthesised them into a report with a series of recommendations (Nauru CRC 2007). The Commission was the intellectual powerhouse of the reform process because it was responsible for collecting, processing, categorising and documenting a massive amount of information which was eventually translated into recommendations for constitutions reform. While the Commission consisted of well qualified individuals with deep commitment to Nauru’s interests, the notion of having an elite body which provided the intellectual direction of the reform discourse for the entire community raised questions of legitimacy and ownership. This procedure was made necessary by accepting that it was pragmatically and logistically prudent to use a small professional group to put all the views together. A vital question here is: given the concerns about how the consultations were conducted and the representativeness of the views generated from the community, how much of the contents of the Commission’s work could be said to be truly reflective of the collective community will? As had been planned from the outset, the Commission never interacted directly with the community. It collected information from the public through the consultation team. The use of the third party, while logistically convenient, simply reinforced the social distance between the Commission and the community. The Commission’s report was the basis for discussions and recommendations of the Constitutional Convention (henceforth Convention), which was Step 4 of the process. The Convention was composed of 36 members: 9 were members of the Constitutional Review Commission, 18 were elected by the various districts and 9 were appointed by various civil society organisations. The civil society representatives consisted of two each from the Nauru Youth Council, from the Nauru Women’s Council and from those who had been members of the first and only convention in 1968, and one each from the Catholic Church, the Congregational Church and the Nauru Disabled Association (Nauru CRC 2007). The UNDP paid all the expenses, including allowances for the participants. The landowners associations, private sector and some vocal civil society organisations were not represented. When I asked why these organisations were not represented, I was told by the UNDP consultant that everyone involved in the convention “was a landowner”, the private sector was “too small” and the vocal civil society organisations were “too disruptive”. The reality, however, was that the landowners association and the “disruptive” organisations had enough political clout to influence the ordinary people to Steven Ratuva 255 vote “No” during the referendum. While the process attempted to be inclusive, it was not inclusive enough to co-opt the dissenting elements. Debate became very intense during the Convention and things began to unravel. About 20 of the recommendations made by the Commission were rejected. Some of these related to the issue of land acquisition by the state, election of the President and other issues relating to political governance. However, later, to everyone’s surprise, the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reform decided to go along with the Commission’s recommendations that had been rejected by the Convention, which was a truly representative body. The Government and UNDP were taken by surprise by the results of the Convention. The message was very clear at this point—the people were beginning to raise their voices and reject some of the important amendment proposals which they believed undermined their interests.

STEP 5: Reform and Political Brinksmanship After the Convention completed its task in May 2007, the recommended amendments were submitted to Parliament in June. This was Step 5 and no doubt the most problematic part of the reform because it coincided with the sudden change of government resulting from a vote of no confidence. All along, the reform process was perceived and treated as non-partisan but all this changed when a new government came into power and as a consequence the political dynamics suddenly changed into one of intense partisanship. A constitutional requirement was that Parliament had to hold a debate on the amendments for a minimum of 90 days before they were passed. But before August 2007, when the 90 days lapsed, an election was called and consequently Parliament could not deliberate or vote on the amendment bills. The election resulted in the return of the incumbent government; however, in December of the same year, a motion of no confidence was passed on the government and in April 2008 the President declared a state of emergency. These political developments delayed the passing of the amendment bills and eventually the two constitutional amendment bills were reintroduced to Parliament in November 2008. The first bill dealt with constitutional amendments which could be carried out through a parliamentary vote, while the second bill dealt with amendments which would later be subjected to a voter referendum (UNDP 2011). Parliament needed time to carefully look at a number of resolutions of the Convention which were “legally unfeasible and internally inconsistent” and which needed legal fine-tuning and amendment before passing (UNDP 2010). This was significant because, increasingly, the role of Parliament rather than of the Convention, which had been a more representative body, became paramount. 256 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru

Once the political situation stabilised, Parliament proceeded with consideration of the motions. In December 2008 the second reading of the Constitution Amendment Bills took place. At the same time, Parliament resolved to establish a Select Committee on Constitutional Amendment Bills to consider in detail and make recommendations for amendment to the two bills to amend the constitution that were (re-)introduced to Parliament in November 2008. This Select Committee met for a total of five weeks in January, February and March 2009. All these meetings were accompanied by media interviews to keep the public informed of what was happening in the spirit of openness. The meetings were conducted in the Parliamentary Chamber while the gallery was open to the public. All meetings were broadcast live on the radio to generate public interest in the proceedings. The Committee produced its report and recommendations on 10 March 2009. Despite the political turmoil, parliamentarians were able to maintain a sense of solidarity and co-operation since most were determined to see through the reforms which promised to bring about political stability and greater economic development. The parliamentary debates were open to the media for the first time to project images of transparency and also to mobilise support for the referendum. Parliament eventually passed the bills unanimously and the way was finally clear for the Referendum.

STEP 6: The Paradox of Democratic Optimism—The Referendum In December 2009 the question for the Referendum was prepared and a Referendum public awareness programme started in February 2010. The Referendum was held in February 2010. The observer team of 14 expatriates based in Nauru were invited by the government to observe the Referendum noted that “the vote was conducted in a professional, fair, free and open environment” (Final Referendum Observers Report 2010: 6). There were altogether 34 proposals for change in a single constitutional amendment package to be decided with the single referendum question: “Do you approve of the proposed law entitled the (Referendum Amendment) Bill 2009?” The amendments included extending the list of rights to include protection of rights to privacy and personal autonomy, rights to information, health services, education, environmental protection and employment, and women’s rights, children’s rights and rights of persons with disabilities ([Referendum] Amendments Bill 2009). Another significant proposal for amendment was the method of electing the President. The original Constitution provided for a President, as both Head of State and Head of Government, to be elected by Parliament. This has been a major cause of instability as groups of parliamentarians could mobilise and use their simple majority in the 18 member parliament to oust Steven Ratuva 257 the President and his government. The amendment provided that Parliament would select two or three suitable candidates and the people would directly choose the President through a national election. A new proposal was the establishment of a Council of State, consisting of the most senior public officers in Nauru, such as “the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or, if the Chief Justice is not a Nauruan, a Nauruan person nominated by the Chief Justice), the Speaker of Parliament (who would not be a member of Parliament as a result of other changes to the Constitution made by Parliament), the Chief Secretary or, if the Chief Secretary is not a Nauruan, a Nauruan person nominated by the Chief Secretary” (Nauru 2009b: 15). The idea was that, in the event of a political crisis, the Council of State would be called upon to perform the functions of a caretaker government until a new President was elected. This was meant to be a politically stabilising mechanism. Perhaps the most controversial amendment proposal dealt with the acquisition of property by the Government under “just terms”. The Constitution already had provision for such an acquisition but did not clearly spell out what “just terms” meant in relation to compensation. The proposed amendment required the Government and relevant landowners to engage in negotiated agreement and if this failed then the Supreme Court would be called to intervene and make a final judgement based on the current use of the property, the importance of the public purpose for which the property was being acquired and any hardship to the owners. Other amendments dealt with clarifying the roles of the President and Cabinet, and explicitly stated that all public officers who receive money by or on behalf of Nauru must pay the money into the Treasury Fund. Of the 4389 voters who cast their vote, 1450 voters (33.04%) voted “Yes”, and 2939 (66.96%) voted “No” . The voter turnout was 78 percent of the 5238 registered voters. The results of the referendum by districts are shown in Table 2. The vote against the referendum was overwhelming in all the districts, except in Yaren, Nauru’s “capital” where the Parliament, government offices and airport are located. Many civil servants, based in Yaren, voted for the reform. Overall, the results reflected the failure of the five phases of the reform to generate and consolidate the support of the Nauru citizens. The 67 percent “No” vote was surprising especially after Parliament had passed the amendment bills unanimously and it was assumed that people would simply replicate that spirit of consensus. The Nauru Government through the acting President referred to the results of the referendum as “disappointing but not entirely unexpected”, while UNDP ironically referred to the reform as a “success” (UNDP 2010). This use of the Orwellian language to dispel disappointment and embarrassment had an important ideological and political 258 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru

Table 2. Results of the Nauruan constitutional reform referendum. Source: UNDP 2011.

role to maintain the state’s sense of legitimacy in the face of what could be construed as a vote of no-confidence in state leadership by voters. On the other hand, critics of the state saw it as a “victory” by the silent majority. So what exactly went wrong? I examine this next.

MAJOR NEGATING FACTORS AGAINST THE REFERENDUM The Land Curse Although the amendment provided more legal clarity and gave more power to landowners if the state wanted to acquire their land for public purposes, many landowners held the deep conviction that land issues should not be tinkered with at all. The issue of land has been extremely sensitive for the people of Nauru given the history of alienating and exploitative land policies starting Steven Ratuva 259 with the Germans (1888-1914) and later the Australian-led Administration (1919-1968). There were large-scale changes to the indigenous land tenure system and rights which were both patrilineal and matrilineal under the chief’s authority. Land was readily exchanged and the boundaries extended to the reef and rights to coconut trees and other plants were as important as rights to land itself (MacSporran 1995). The German attitude towards indigenous land could be summed up thus:

... it was taken for granted at the time, that the annexation of a territory by Germany as a colony did have no effect on the private rights of the indigenous people, that the rights were protected; they were not wiped out by the annexation but they would survive. (Transcript of Commission of Inquiry Proceedings, quoted in MacSporran 1995: 7)

While this was a general German imperial policy, a special dispensation was later given to Jaluit Gesellschaft, a German mining company, through a major concession in 1906. The Mining Ordinance of 1906 introduced changes that undermined the rights of Nauruan landowners and among them was the provision that phosphate was regarded as a “free” mineral that upon extraction became the property of the miner. However, there were other provisions of the mining law, as well as Article 249 of the Civil Code, which provided for restoration of damaged land and compensation to make this possible (MacSporran 1995). These compensatory provisions were hardly adhered to. Upon the takeover of Nauru administration by Australia in 1919, a number of changes took place that further alienated Nauruans’ control over their land. For instance on 25 June 1920 the British Phosphate Commission (BPC) was given a mining concession and in the process gained virtual control and a monopoly over mining on the island. A series of mining laws were passed for the purpose of regulating use of land (such as the 1921 and 1927 Mining Ordinances) but these were carried out without consultation with landowners (Hughes 2004). In 1928, a Nauru Land Committee, consisting of some local chiefs, was formed to represent local landowners in all land dealings to ensure a more systematic process of negotiation under these new laws. This Committee was given legislative backing in 1956 (Nauru Lands Committee Ordinance 1956). The aim of the ordinance was to allow the identification and codification of landownership, but it was never carried out. Later attempts to codify landownership met resistance because it did not coincide with the more flexible indigenous system. Determination of ownership of land for leasing purposes by the BPC led to numerous claims and counter-claims that provoked conflict. 260 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru

Upon independence, the right to mine was transferred to the Government of Nauru and the Nauru Phosphate Corporation (Hughes 2004). The later land law was based on the 1976 Land Act which continued the previous system except when the minister might endorse a lease if three-quarters of the joint owners of a property agreed to lease land for public purposes thus overriding the views of the minority (MacSporran 1995). In all past land deals, landowners were mere passive participants and were denied a voice in many strategic decisions. In fact there was a strong view among many colonial and mining officials that the interior of the island where mining started was not owned at all and so Nauruans did not need to be consulted. After the total destruction of their land through mining and the subsequent collapse of the Nauruan economy, people began to develop a deep-seated distrust of their Government which they felt had failed them. Land was seen as more a source of anguish than of prosperity and any attempt by the government, or anyone else for that matter, to do anything that would impact on it, became extremely sensitive and could invoke resistance. This was precisely what happened during the Referendum. The proposed amendment to the provision on land acquisition contained technicalities which created confusion. In relation to acquisition of land by the state, Article 8 (1) of the Constitution states that “No person shall be deprived compulsorily of his property except in accordance with law for a public purpose and on just terms” (Constitution of the Republic of Nauru 1968). The “just terms” were not specified so the amendment attempted to propose conditions such as: (i) the current use of the property, (ii) the history of the acquisition and use of the property, (iii) the importance of the public purpose for which the property is being acquired, (iv) the interests of those affected by the acquisition, and (v) any hardship to the owners (Constitution of Nauru (Referendum) Amendments Bill 2009b). It was optimistically assumed that the amendment gave the landowners a lot of power and also would dispel any ambiguity and confusion over what “just terms” meant. However, the reaction from voters was different. One of the opposing opinions was that by listing the five conditions, the amendment ironically limited the options of the Supreme Court, which was to make the final decision, compared to the ambiguous but more open provisions of the Constitution. Perhaps the most significant factor was the fear, albeit unfounded, that the Government would try and use Article 8 to take away land. This fear was effectively spread around the island through community communicative networks. The land issue became politicised and opinion makers within the community used the opportunity to mobilise anti-referendum campaigns. The Government responded by attempting to allay people’s fears through extensive use of the media. The competition between the media and the Steven Ratuva 261 informal discursive engagements within the community to win the public relations continued for weeks up to the referendum itself. The government media had to go into overdrive to compete with the wave of fear and dissent provoked by the land amendment proposal.

Election of the President The second contentious issue was the election of the President, in particular whether the President, who was both Head of Government and Head of State, was to be elected by Parliament or directly by the people. As a unicameral parliamentary system under the Constitution, the President was elected by the 18 members of Parliament representing eight multi-member constituencies. Since there were no political parties, the President appointed any four or five parliamentarians as Ministers which then made up the Cabinet. The President and Cabinet held executive power and those not part of this ruling circle regarded themselves as the “opposition”.8 The referendum bill recommended that Part 111 of the Constitution be amended to ensure that the President would be elected directly by the voters as in Kiribati. However, to control the number of candidates, the amendment also suggested that candidates for the presidency were to be nominated “from among members of Parliament, not fewer than two nor more than three candidates for election as President, and no other person may be a candidate” (Nauru Constitutional Amendment (Referendum) Bill 2009b: 11). Opposition to this recommendation was based on the argument that the reform was not democratic enough because, while it suggested that presidents were to be elected directly by the people outside the confinement of Parliament, who could stand was restricted by a decision left once again to Parliament. Many regarded this contradictory to the principles of democracy and very patronising of the Nauru people.

Lack of Confidence in the State and Politics Related to the above, was the deeply embedded lack of trust in the state system and political leadership which over the years had bred complacency and cynicism. While partially owing to the continuing instability in governance as discussed above, these attitudes reflected the continuing economic disaster, which were blamed squarely—rightly or wrongly—on political elites. Over the years, problems of poverty and socio-economic marginalisation, poor housing, limited fresh water and fresh food increased markedly, thus putting significant pressure on the already diminished island resources and capacity of an unstable government.9 This was a far cry from the times of bounty when phosphate trade was at its peak and the citizens enjoyed a first-world lifestyle of high consumption and luxury. By the 1990s Nauru’s assets were almost depleted 262 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru as a result of “corruption, poor investment decisions, overspending and lack of planning” and the government was operating on a deficit budget, forcing it to tap into its reserves (Government of Nauru 2010: 2). Excessive borrowing resulted, so that by 2010 about 70 percent of the budgetary allocation was sourced through foreign aid. By the 2009-2010 budget year, Nauru had a total debt of US$869 million, roughly 20 times the budget (UNDP 2011). The situation was further worsened by problems of governance and accountability. For instance, between 1998 and 2004 there was no government audited public account submitted to Parliament (Nauru Constitutional Review Commission 2007). In the case of several government statutory corporations, there had been no audited accounts since 1991-92 (Nauru Constitutional Review Commission 2007). The list of fiscal and ethical problems was staggering and included failure of collective responsibility by former cabinets and former governments to account for the use of public funds to the people of Nauru through Parliament, absence of statutory penal provisions to prevent such failures, breakdown of the computer system from 2001, absence of qualified accountants and loss of records. As if by political design, the Director of Audit had no access to Parliament records and expenditure. The constitutional reform was expected to strengthen political, administrative and financial governance to reverse the instability, corruption, poor management and unscrupulous business practices of the previous years which led to Nauru’s economic downfall. However, not many people were convinced that this optimism was workable because of the fixed perception that political leaders were unchangeable given Nauru’s past history. Nauru people held their leaders responsible and their views were explicitly expressed during the consultations where some independent civil society organisations and community leaders openly challenged the reform and cast further doubt and distrust in the minds of other citizens.

Marginalising Community Dissent A critical factor was the inability of the UNDP, Government and Constitutional Review Committee to include and co-opt dissenting voices in the community. Instead dissenting voices were ignored and marginalised as minor irritants which had no clout and thus no significant influence. They totally misread the situation. These dissenting voices represented a sizeable silent majority and took advantage of the kinship and community-based networks to extend their influence. The UNDP, Government and CRC used sophisticated media and public relations methods to mobilise public opinion as well as undermine dissenters. Instead of listening to and dialoguing with dissenters and tactically co-opting them gradually and progressively into the pro-reform bloc, they were basically treated with disdain. This merely strengthened the resolve of Steven Ratuva 263 the dissenters to derail the process as the political campaigns became very personal and directed at times. Derogatory remarks often targeted Australians who some Nauru people believed had hijacked the reform process. This belief was justified by the involvement of Australian consultants, the public speech by the Australian Ambassador during the campaign urging people to vote “Yes”, heavy involvement of an Australian in the media campaign as Director of Information and Australia’s direct contribution in printing the Nauru constitution for distribution. All these activities provided ammunition for the dissenters who strategically whipped up people’s feelings of ethno- nationalism and made the divide even wider.

Technical Blunder The major technical blunder was bundling all the 34 amendments into the single “Yes” or “No” question: “Do you approve of the proposed law entitled the Constitution of Nauru (Referendum Amendment) Bill 2009?” In other words, it was impossible for the individual voters to choose what specific amendments they wanted to vote for. There was no provision for voters to vote on individual amendments so it was a case of either agreeing or disagreeing with the whole package. If person disagreed with two or three amendments out of 34, the only available option was to simply vote “No” for everything. For instance, while there was general endorsement of the human rights provisions, there was disagreement with the land acquisition issue. This sparked off further debate about why the amendments were drafted this way. The UNDP consultant and later parliamentary counsel argued that the Constitution stated that the amendments had to be in the form of single bills. The consultant advised that all the amendments should be in a single bill instead of having a series of single bills (Le Roy 2008). The argument was that a series of single amendment bills would be confusing to the voters (CRC Minutes of meeting 2009). The critics thought otherwise, arguing that given the dire need for reform, minor technicalities, which might potentially derail the process, could have been easily ignored to ensure that the bigger goals were achieved. A CSO activist claimed that putting together the amendments in a bundle was reflective of the “paternalistic and neo-colonial thinking” of the UNDP and the CRC in assuming that Nauru people were “too dumb” to distinguish between the different amendments and would simply endorse the whole package. Accepting there was truth in this view, the fact that the “No” vote prevailed showed that Nauruan voters were informed and critical enough to articulate their views even in a dissenting way. * * * 264 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru

It took the costly path of going through the Referendum for the UNDP and CRC to realise their shortcomings and as a result they have decided to carry out a national survey to find out how people voted and their reasons for voting to help them design a new approach in the next referendum (CRC Draft Survey questions 2010). After the failure and embarrassment those concerned realised that the best way forward was to reconsider their approach and this time around to seriously consider the importance of local thinking and sentiments, something they had ignored earlier. In addition, they would try and break down the amendments into separate bills representing separate issues rather than bundling them all together. At the same time the CRC is continuing with certain amendments which could be carried out by the Parliament itself without another referendum (Constitution of Nauru Parliamentary Amendments Act 2009a). Perhaps one of the most positive aspect of the referendum was that it enabled the state and UNDP to begin to recognise the importance of engaging with local ways of knowing in the political reform process. The Nauru Referendum provides a lesson for other constitutional review processes in the Pacific—that is, the need to strike a balance between the global and the local. It is imperative to note that approaches to reform should not be based on the notion that the global and local are essentially dichotomous and that the former is naturally superior to the latter. On the contrary, both are evolving societal constructs that are amenable to accommodation as well as contradiction. While certain international best practices such as equality, inclusivity, human rights and people participation have universal appeal, they are, at the same time, culture bound in their definitions and application. The inability to recognise and appreciate others’ ways of knowing can create a situation of disjuncture and tension. The UNDP-sponsored reform process held the erroneous assumption that as a small homogenous community, it would be easy to achieve a broad consensus among the people of Nauru. However, this assumption was misplaced because it failed to take into serious and practical consideration their traumatising historical experience and how this had been a major factor in shaping their apathy and suspicion of outsiders and political authority. Furthermore, it must be noted that the reform was focused on reconfiguring the state’s political and economic capacity and little attention was paid to improving the livelihood of the ordinary people. The inability to make the connections between high level institutional reforms and people’s local concerns added to the people’s sense of distance and disengagement. The gap between the formal sphere consisting of the state, consultants and UNDP on one hand and the local community and its ways of knowing on the other Steven Ratuva 265 appeared intractable, and attempts to bridge the divide using conventional means of public relations and consultation failed to achieve the desired results. The UNDP measured the success of the different steps in terms of formally constructed and systematically codified activities using different sets of documents and not how effective the activities were in changing people’s thinking and behaviour. This reliance on pre-formulated planning and monitoring systems used by UNDP did little to unearth and address the deeper sentiments and concerns of the community. Alternatively, a more participatory and innovative approach could have been deployed to ensure greater community ownership and address the issue of historical trauma, alienation and division as a preparatory approach for the reform. For instance, the reform could have been preceded by an extended conversation between Nauru and other Pacific states as a way of sharing mutual reform experiences. Also important was the need for a national dialogue initiative based on the indigenous peace-building processes as a way of ameliorating vertical and horizontal differences which might create obstacles for reform (Boege and Brown 2009). The translation of the constitution into Nauruan and the use of the Nauruan language in all phases of the reform were vital to raise the level of consciousness and empowerment. Unfortunately they did not happen. Using a mixture of culturally familiar and appropriate introduced tools are of paramount importance in developing societies. The Nauruan constitutional reform provided important lessons that need to be heeded. First is the importance of recognising the strengths and limits of both the global and local approaches and their capacity to co-exist and even synthesise creatively. Both have transformational potential that can be nurtured for reform purposes. Second, because of their hegemonic position, global discourses are not necessarily superior; “superiority” needs to be measured against appropriateness to local realities. Global ideas and practices are not necessarily universally applicable and acceptable as they need to be subjected to local cultural interpretations. Third, the defeat of the reform through the referendum (despite Parliament passing the reform bill through consensus) showed that parliaments and the state systems do not necessarily represent the democratic aspirations of the community as conventional wisdom dictates. Fourth, for acceptance of political reform, there should be local ownership of the reform process through use of local languages, communication channels and socio-cultural networks. Fifth, understanding history, not only official history but also the living experiences of colonised people and their collective suffering and trauma must be a factor in analysing their contemporary cultural notions and collective political responses. Modern day Nauru is the embodiment of such a historical dilemma. 266 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru

NOTES 1. My discussions with representatives of the landowners association showed that dispute over land affected community stability and peace in a significant way. This was exacerbated by the distribution of mining royalties. Normally, matrilineal family heads were regarded as “landowners”. 2. Many Nauruans I talked to still showed deep-seated anger about their history. Some would prefer not to discuss past issues when discussing current issues today. 3. Much of this information was shared by people in focus group discussions. 4. The Pacific states are quite diverse in political and economic characteristics and these variables do not capture the specificities. See http://www.undppc.org. fj/pages.cfm/our-work/democratic-governance/ for source of quotation. 5. These are a standard list of participants in reforms which are universally used by international agencies, civil society organisations and even states. For quotation, see UNDP http://www.undppc.org.fj/pages.cfm/our-work/democratic- governance/. 6. Sometimes the term “international best practice” is used. 7. These were based on interviews with some voters and members of the civil society organisations. 8. Parliament has a three-year term and there is universal suffrage with voting age at 20. The districts were administered by the NLGC until 1992 when they were abolished and today individual districts have their own community committees consisting of elected representatives. These committees carry out community projects and at times act as representative entities, although they are not legally constituted and regulated by law. 9. Based on the 2006 census, the unemployment rate was 34 percent and the Gross National Income (GNI) was minus 3.2 million. See Nauru Government (2010).

REFERENCES Balm , Kevin and K. Le Roy, 2006. Report of the Public Consultation for Constitutional Review Committee, Nauru, 22 November. Bernabéu, Irene, 2007. Laying the foundations of democracy? Reconsidering security sector reform under UN auspices in Kosovo. Security Dialogue, 38: 71, 72-92. Boege, V. and A. Brown, 2009. Building peace and political community in hybrid political orders. International Peacekeeping, 16 (5): 599-615. Brown, Stephen, 2004. Naturalized virtue ethics and the epistemological gap. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 1: 197-209. Connell, John. 2006. Nauru: The first failed Pacific state? The Round Table: Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 95: 47-63. Davidson, J.W., 1968. The Republic of Nauru. Journal of Pacific Studies, 3: 145-50. Dore, R., 1985. Unity and diversity in world culture. In H. Bull and A.Watson (eds), The Expansion of International Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 56-68. Steven Ratuva 267

Final Referendum Observers Report for Government of Nauru, Nauru Referendum, 27 February 2010. Gegeo, David and Karen Watson-Gegeo, 2001. How we know: Kwara‘ae rural villagers doing indigenous epistemology. The Contemporary Pacific, 13 (1): 55-88. Hall, Stuart, 1980. Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall et al., Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (ed.), Culture, Media, Language. London: Hutchinson, pp. 117-27. ——1997. Old and new identities, old and new ethnicities. In A.D. King (ed.), Culture, Globalisation and the World-System, Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, pp. 41-68. Hannerz, U., 1990. Cosmopolitans and locals in a world culture. In M. Featherstone (ed.), Global Culture, Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity. London: Sage Publications, pp. 237-52. Herman, E. and N. Chomsky, 1994. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. London: Vintage. Huffer, Elise and Tui Rakuita, 2008. Land and people as the measure: A Pacific ethic of place and prudence. In D. Calderbank (ed.),Asia Pacific Perspective on Environment Ethics. Bangkok: UNESCO, pp. 7-21. Hughes, Helen, 2004. From Riches to Rags: What are Nauru’s Options and How Can Australia Help? Canberra: Centre for Independent Studies. Huntington, Samuel, 1993. The clash of civilizations? The next pattern of conflicts. Foreign Affairs, 72 (3): 22-50. Le Roy, Katy, 2006. Report of the Public Awareness Campaign, September. ——2008. Memorandum—Advice on Constitutional Review Process for Members of the Constitutional Review Committee, 9 May. MacSporran, Peter, 1995. Landownership and control in Nauru. Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law, 2 (2). (http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v2n2/ macsporran22.html). Mathews, G., 2000. Global Culture/ Individual Identity, Searching for Home in the Cultural Supermarket. London: Routledge. McDowell, Karen, 1986. The Constitutional Development of Nauru. Unpublished PhD thesis, La Trobe University, Melbourne. Quanchi, Max, 2007. Troubled times: Development and economic crisis in Nauru. In A. Brown (ed.), Security and Development in the Pacific Islands. London: Lynne-Rienner, pp. 249-64. Scholte, J.A., 2000. Globalization: A Critical Introduction. London: Macmillan. Tabucanon, Marvel and Brian Opeskin, 2011. The resettlement of Nauruans in Australia: An early case of failed environmental migration. Journal of Pacific History, 46 (2): 1-27. Toatu, Teuea, 2004. Keeping the Nauru economy afloat. Pacific Economic Bulletin, 19 (2): 123-28. Tomlinson, J., 1999. Globalisation and Culture. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Viviani, Nancy, 1970. Nauru—Phosphate and Political Progress. Canberra: ANU Press. Weeramantry, Christopher, 1992. Nauru: Environmental Damage under International Trusteeship. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 268 Dilemmas of Constitutional Reform in Nauru

Nauru Sources Constitution of Nauru, 2009a. (Parliamentary Amendments) Act 2009. —— 2009b. (Referendum) Amendments Bill 2009. Constitution of the Republic of Nauru 1968. CRC, 2009c. Minutes of meeting 2009. CRC Draft survey questions 2010. Government of Nauru, 2005. National Sustainable Development Strategy. Nauru: Government of Nauru. Nauru Constitutional Review Commission Report, 2007. Nauru Government, 2010. Government Report to UN Human Rights Council, Universal Periodic Review. Nauru Lands Committee Ordinance 1956. UNDP Documents: UNDP 2006. Project Document. ——2010.Terms of Reference for Evaluation of Nauru Constitutional Review. ——2011. Report of Evaluation of Nauru Constitutional Review. http://www.undppc.org.fj/pages.cfm/our-work/democratic-governance

ABSTRACT The dilemma posed by the gap between global thinking and local living is examined in relation to the constitutional reform process in Nauru. My article looks at the role of UNDP as a global player and how, in partnership with the local political elites, designed and administered a reform process which was defeated by the voters during the referendum in February 2010. The case illustrates the consequences of attempting to apply global principles and methods of reform in an isolated community whose traumatic colonial history created deep anguish and suspicion of outsiders, and provides some lessons for constitutional reform in the Pacific states. Keywords: global discourse, local culture, constitutional reform, referendum, Nauru