“a law unto themselves”: legal innovation in Ambae, Vanuatu

There are few accounts in anthropological literature of radical legal innovation in small‐scale societies. This paper discusses a South Pacific society in which, following the end of colonial rule, people reorganized their villages, codified their laws, and established a court system well able to resolve most disputes. The case of Ambae, Vanuatu, raises the question: Why, in a world area well known for economic, religious, and political innovation, has legal innovation been reported so rarely? It is suggested that the centralist perspective that prevails in legal scholarship concerning the Pacific has led to an overemphasis on the coercive nature of the state and a devaluation of Pacific islanders' capacity for legal innovation. [law, innovation, colonialism, Melanesia, Vanuatu]