Aboriginal Peoples Colonialism And International Law

This work is the first to assess the legality and impact of colonisation from the viewpoint of Aboriginal law, rather than from that of the dominant Western legal tradition. It begins by outlining the Aboriginal legal system as it is embedded in Aboriginal people’s complex relationship with their ancestral lands. This is Raw Law: a natural system of obligations and benefits, flowing from an Aboriginal ontology. This book places Raw Law at the centre of an analysis of colonisation – thereby decentring the usual analytical tendency to privilege the dominant structures and concepts of Western law. From the perspective of Aboriginal law, colonisation was a violation of the code of political and social conduct embodied in Raw Law. Its effects were damaging. It forced Aboriginal peoples to violate their own principles of natural responsibility to self, community, country and future existence. But this book is not simply a work of mourning. Most profoundly, it is a celebration of the resilience of Aboriginal ways, and a call for these to be recognised as central in discussions of colonial and postcolonial legality. Written by an experienced legal practitioner, scholar and political activist, AboriginalPeoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law will be of interest to students and researchers of Indigenous Peoples Rights, International Law and Critical Legal Theory.

For more than 500 years, Indigenous laws have been disregarded. Many appeals for their recognition under international law have been made, but have thus far failed – mainly because international law was itself shaped by colonialism. How, this volume asks, might international law be reconstructed, so that it is liberated from its colonial origins? 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.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission urged a better understanding of Aboriginal law for all Canadians. This book responds to that call, outlining significant legal developments in straightforward, non-technical language. Jim Reynolds provides the historical context needed to understand the relationship between Indigenous peoples and settlers and explains key topics such as sovereignty, fiduciary duties, the honour of the Crown, Aboriginal rights and title, treaties, the duty to consult, Indigenous laws, and international law. He concludes that rather than leaving the judiciary to sort out essentially political issues, politicians need to take responsibility for this crucial aspect of building a just society.

This volume of the Indigenous Justice series 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. European-based law not only has been used as a tool to infringe upon Indigenous human rights, it also has been used throughout global history to justify environmental injustices, treaty breaking, and massacres. 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. While all of these issues are rooted in colonization, Indigenous peoples are using their own solutions to demonstrate the resilience, persistence, and innovation of their communities. 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. Despite proof of oppressive legal practices concerning Indigenous peoples worldwide, this book also provides hope for amelioration of colonial consequences.

This book addresses the right of indigenous peoples to live, own and use their traditional territories, and analyses how international law addresses this. Through its meticulous examination of the interaction between international law and indigenous peoples’ land rights, the work explores several burning issues such as collective rights, self-determination, property rights, cultural rights and restitution of land. It delves into the notion of past violations and the role of international law in providing for remedies, reparation and restitution. It also argues that there is a new phase in the relationship between States, indigenous peoples and private actors, such as corporations, in the making of territorial agreements.

Six essays in which specialists in international law examine indigenous peoples' right to self-determination from different perspectives, most of which were first presented at the International Conference on Aboriginal Rights and World Public Order organized by Carleton University and held in Ottawa in 1983. Where possible, updating information has been provided in editor's notes.

This book brings together Indigenous, Third World and Settler perspectives on the theory and practice of decolonizing law. Colonialism, imperialism, and settler colonialism continue to affect the lives of racialized communities and Indigenous Peoples around the world. Law, in its many iterations, has played an active role in the dispossession and disenfranchisement of colonized peoples. Law and its various institutions are the means by which colonial, imperial, and settler colonial programs and policies continue to be reinforced and sustained. There are, however, recent and historical examples in which law has played a significant role in dismantling colonial and imperial structures set up during the process of colonization. This book combines usually distinct Indigenous, Third World and Settler perspectives in order to take up the effort of decolonizing law: both in practice and in the concern to distance and to liberate the foundational theories of legal knowledge and academic engagement from the manifestations of colonialism, imperialism and settler colonialism. Including work by scholars from the Global South and North, this book will be of interest to academics, students and others interested in the legacy of colonial and settler law, and its overcoming.

Agenda 21: chapter 26.