This two (2) unit seminar course in
comparative international law focuses on the legal
rights and statuses of the indigenous peoples of four
(4) common law countries–Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, and the United States. The indigenous peoples
of these nations-the First Nations of Canada, the Maori
of New Zealand, the Aboriginals of Australia, and the
American Indians of the United States-face similar,
but by no means identical, challenges in their historic
and contemporary efforts to preserve their aboriginal
land rights; their cultural and religious beliefs and
practices; their civil and political liberties; and
their inherent rights of self-determination.
These four nations share common historical and legal
origins: in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
colonialists from these countries settled what they
regarded as newly discovered territories and, in their
drive for national development, displaced and, in some
cases, dispossessed the resident indigenous peoples
of their lands they had occupied since time immemorial.
Over the past two hundred years or more, these indigenous
peoples have struggled to retain a small amount of
their traditional territories as their contemporary
sites for the exercise of their inherent right of self-determination.
Furthermore, these four nations, based in part on their
shared historical and legal origins, undertook similar,
but far from identical, legal and political strategies
to deal with their respective indigenous peoples’ historic
and contemporary claims wherein they sought to assert
their inherent or treaty confirmed land, civil, cultural
and economic rights.
This course focuses on the contemporary legal and
political development of a similar “constitutional” corpus
of indigenous rights law with each of these four nations.
This growing body of indigenous rights law arises from
several similar national legal and political sources:
a. these nations’ evolving
common law decisions relating to the nature and scope
of indigenous peoples’ rights;
b. national treaties executed by these governments
with their respective indigenous peoples; c. national
constitutional provisions that define their respective
indigenous peoples’ distinctive political and
legal statuses; d. national statutes that govern or
regulate the political and social relations between
these nations and their respective indigenous peoples;
and, e. these nations’ use
of specialized administrative bodies or governmental
commissions to help foster their respective indigenous
peoples economic and social development.
This course will evaluate the comparative legal and
political statuses of these indigenous peoples in light
of their respective host nation’s particular “constitutional” model
of indigenous rights law. It will also evaluate each nation’s domestic
indigenous rights law in comparison with the on-going international law effort
to promulgate minimally acceptable standards and norms of domestic legal and
political conduct toward’s the world’s indigenous peoples–including
the indigenous peoples residing in these four nations. |
