Aboriginal Law & Indigenous Laws

This book examines the human rights of Indigenous peoples and communities under current international law. Setting out a historical overview of the legal treatment of indigenous peoples from the colonial period to the present, the authors analyse frameworks of institutions monitoring Indigenous human rights, theoretical issues relating to these, access to justice and reparations, and special considerations afforded to specific Indigenous communities.

This book draws on sociology of law, anthropology, political sciences and legal sciences in order to address emerging issues in the study of indigenous rights and identify directions for future research.

The authors bring together expert analysis of public international law, climate change treaties, property law, human rights and indigenous customary land tenure to provide a systemic account of the laws governing forest carbon sequestration and their interaction. Their work covers recent developments in climate change law, including the Agreement from the Conference of the Parties in Paris that came into force in 2016. The Impact of Climate Change Mitigation on Indigenous and Forest Communities is a rich and much-needed contribution to contemporary understanding of this topic.

Rights to their traditional lands and resources are essential to the survival of indigenous peoples. They have been formulated and advanced in the most progressive way by the Inter-American system of human rights protection.In this book, Mariana Monteiro de Matos analyzes, in detailed and comprehensive inquiry, the pertinent jurisprudence of the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights. She identifies three distinct waves of decision regarding the objects of ownership or possession, the rights associated, and the holders of the rights.

This book surveys how indigenous peoples have emerged as international legal subjects and possessors of both sovereign and private rights over territories. The work analyses and presents the rights indigenous peoples and communities hold under the contemporary indigenous rights discourse, positing that the content and scope of such rights can largely be understood by properly knowing the meaning of only two concepts: namely ‘peoples’ and ‘equality’. The book’s articulation of the indigenous rights discourse focuses heavily on two areas of law. First, it looks at the issue of indigenous peoples’ potential status as international legal subjects and holders of peoples’ rights. Second, the book discusses the correct understanding of equality under contemporary international law and asserts that this right underpins a substantial number of the rights that make up the indigenous rights discourse.

With contributions from critical legal theory, international law, politics, philosophy and Indigenous history, this volume pursues a cross-disciplinary analysis of the international legal exclusion of Indigenous Peoples, and of its relationship to global injustice. Beyond the issue of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, however, this analysis is set within the broader context of sustainability; arguing that Indigenous laws, philosophy and knowledge are not only legally valid, but offer an essential approach to questions of ecological justice and the co-existence of all life on earth.

This book examines the indigenous literature and recent legal cases as a pretext for granting juristic personhood to enspirited sacred natural sites. The author draws on two decades of his research among Tibetans in Kham (southwest China), to provide a detailed case study. It is argued that juristic personhood is contingent upon the presence and agency of a resident numina and that recognition should be given to their role in spiritual governance over their jurisdiction. The book concludes by recommending that advocacy organisations help Indigenous people with test cases to secure standing for threatened sacred natural sites (SNS);and calls upon IUCN, UNESCO (MAB and WHS), ASEAN Heritage and EuroNatura to retrospectively re-designate their properties, reserves, parks and initiatives so that SNS and spiritual governance are fully recognised and embraced.

Laurelyn Whitt and Alan W. Clarke contend that, if certain events which occurred during the colonization of North America were to take place today, they could be prosecuted as genocide. The legal methodology that the authors develop to establish this draws upon the definition of genocide as presented in the United Nations Genocide Convention and enhanced by subsequent decisions in international legal fora. Focusing on early British colonization, the authors apply this methodology to two historical cases: that of the Beothuk Nation from 1500-1830, and of the Powhatan Tsenacommacah from 1607-77. North American Genocides concludes with a critique of the Conventional account of genocide, suggesting how it might evolve beyond its limitations to embrace the role of cultural destruction in undermining the viability of human groups.

Offering readers an engaging review of ongoing lawmaking, adoption and implementation processes from both a global and regional perspective, this book also investigates the important elements of Indigenous rights and economic issues, including trade, investment and economic growth.

The question of what rights might be afforded to Indigenous peoples has preoccupied the municipal legal systems of settler states since the earliest colonial encounters. As a result of sustained institutional initiatives, many national legal regimes and the international legal order accept that Indigenous peoples possess an extensive array of legal rights. This book offers the first sustained study of these rights and their reception within modern legal systems. Taking a three-part approach, it looks at the international aspects of Indigenous entitlements in marine spaces, explores specific country examples, and looks at some interdisciplinary themes of crucial importance to the question of the recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples in marine settings.

The adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 was heralded as the beginning of a new era for Indigenous Peoples' participation in global governance bodies. These rights are defined and agreed upon internationally, but must be enacted at regional, national, and local scales. Can the global movement to promote Indigenous Peoples' rights change the experience of communities at the local level? Or are the concepts that it mobilizes, around rights and political tools, essentially a discourse circulating internationally, relatively disconnected from practical situations? Are the categories and processes associated with Indigenous Peoples simply an extension of colonial categories and processes, or do they challenge existing norms and structures? This collection draws together the works of anthropologists, political scientists, and legal scholars to address such questions.

This volume explores the global effects of marginalizing Indigenous law. The essays in this book argue that European-based law has been used to force Indigenous peoples to assimilate, has politically disenfranchised Indigenous communities, and has destroyed traditional Indigenous social institutions. The research in this volume focuses on the resurgence of traditional law, tribal-state relations in the United States, laws that have impacted Native American women, laws that have failed to protect Indigenous sacred sites, the effect of international conventions on domestic laws, and the role of community justice organizations in operationalizing international law. With chapters focusing on the use and misuse of law as it pertains to Indigenous peoples in North America, Latin America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, this book offers a wide scope of global injustice.

This book queries, through the prism of the Convention for the Protection and the Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (the Convention), the ways in which the processes and substance of international law-making have shifted in response to new technologies and new actors. The essays, written by recognised experts in the field, engage deeply with the practice under the Convention. The 4 parts examine: the rise of new actors and their impact on the Convention's law-making and implementation; the specific implementation of Article 21; the role of cultural communities in promoting diversity of cultural expressions; and the effectiveness and coherence of the Convention. Scholars and practitioners in the field of international law of culture and international cultural cooperation will welcome this fascinating new book.

As Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations from 2008 to 2017, Christopher Finlayson completed an unprecedented number of settlements with iwi. In 2012 alone, Parliament passed more Treaty legislation than it had over the previous twenty years. Christopher Finlayson gained unique insight into the elements of successful negotiations and was involved in developing legal innovations to reach settlements. In this book, the authors analyse the essential components of settlements, reference particular settlements in looking at themes such as natural resources, co-governance and legal personality, and they discuss the impact of the process and outcomes on the relationship between Māori and the Crown.