FRANÇOIS FERAL is professor emeritus at Université de Perpignan of which he was president from 2002 to 2007. He has extensive experience in collaborative interdisciplinary research on environmental and indigenous issues in the Pacific. He currently heads the Pacific Research Group within a major international research partnership led by the Canada Research Chair on Legal Diversity and Indigenous Peoples and devoted to comparative work on the management of legal pluralism by and with indigenous peoples. In partnership with the Customary Senate of New Caledonia, he co-leads various participatory action research initiatives aimed at furthering cooperative legal pluralism through the recognition of indigenous Kanak law and institutions. He is the author of several articles on recent institutional and legal developments in New Caledonia including the Charte du peuple kanak.