Abstract

This paper examines the special status of Cameroon’s English-speaking regions (North West and South West) as outlined in the 2019 General Code of Regional and Local Authorities (GC-RLA). It aims to assess the effectiveness of the asymmetrical devolution in favour of the North West and South West regions, chosen as the structural tool to accommodate their specificities within the national fold, and as a path towards resolving the conflict afflicting these two regions. The paper concludes that resorting to asymmetrical devolution as a tool to resolve Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis is a good medicine, which, however, has not been administered at the appropriate dose. On the one hand, indeed, establishing infranational regions with differentiated degrees of autonomy based on their specificities, is increasingly resorted to, in a bid to resolve conflicts within States which are driven by internal regional and territorial specificities, especially when – as it is the case in Cameroon – minorities concerned attain a certain threshold of demographic significance (around 15% of the national population). On the other hand, based on the comparative normative guideposts and best experiences on the setting up of special status regions, this study argues that the conditions for the implementation of the special status as provided for by the GC-RLA are not conducive to making it play the role for which it has been provided.