Deep-sea mining prospects in French Polynesia: Governance and the politics of time

This contribution aims at sharing the results of an interdisciplinary expert group review led by the Institute for Development Research and commissioned by the French Polynesian and French governments with the view of reviewing the current state of knowledge on DSM deposits in French Polynesia in order to evaluate the potential for establishing a DSM mining sector, and to make recommendations that could be used as guidelines for developing a policy framework if the exploration and exploitation of DSM resources were to go ahead. The paper focuses on the governance issue in a context of non-independent overseas territory and specifically of the French nuclear testing legacy. The distribution of legal competences between the French and French Polynesian governments is of course at stake but governance is also about inclusion, transparency; it is a matter of redressing asymmetries of information and power and alleviating moral and normative uncertainties. The time dimension of governance - the gaps between the various temporalities and timescapes underlying the DSM activities - will be particularly stressed.