The United Kingdom Overseas Territories: Continuity and Change

The United Kingdom Overseas Territories: Continuity and Change

A one day conference at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Tuesday 17 May 2011

Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House

This conference will consider the issues and challenges facing small sub‐national jurisdictions in the global political economy. Particularly it will focus on those territories which retain formal links to European countries namely the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands. Within this context, there will be a stronger emphasis on the UK territories. This is for two reasons. First, we would like to revisit some of the issues debated five years ago in a conference entitled ‘The UK Overseas Territories: Past, Present and
Future’ held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. Second, with a new British government in place it is worthwhile considering the nature of the new relationship and how it might develop over the coming years. However, in order to provide a wider context, comparative developments in the French and Dutch territories will be investigated.

The issues affecting all the territories such as the maintenance of good governance, economic development and the risks of economic vulnerability, and environmental sustainability are important concerns for all territories both independent and nonindependent. The ways in which these issues are addressed are somewhat different in small sub‐national jurisdictions because of the particular regimes in place and the tensions inherent within the model of governance involving the territory and the ultimate authority of the metropole. Thus the value of the conference will be to advance a better understanding of the trends and transformations that are present in the relationships.

For further details contact the organisers:

Dr Peter Clegg, Department of Politics, University of the West of England
peter.clegg@uwe.ac.uk 44+ (0)117 32 82376

Professor David Killingray, Institute of Commonwealth Studies
dmkillingray@hotmail.com 44+ (0)1732 453008