Aboriginal Law and Indigenous Law

In From Recognition to Reconciliation, twenty leading scholars reflect on the continuing transformation of the constitutional relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state.

In Indigenous Writes, Chelsea Vowel initiates myriad conversations about the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada. An advocate for Indigenous worldviews, the author discusses the fundamental issues--the terminology of relationships; culture and identity; myth-busting; state violence; and land, learning, law and treaties--along with wider social beliefs about these issues. She answers the questions that many people have on these topics to spark further conversations at home, in the classroom, and in the larger community.

In the last two decades there has been positive change in how the Canadian legal system defines Aboriginal and treaty rights. Yet even after the recognition of those rights in the Constitution Act of 1982, the legacy of British values and institutions as well as colonial doctrine still shape how the legal system identifies and interprets Aboriginal and treaty rights. What results is a systematic bias in the legal system that places Indigenous peoples at a distinct disadvantage. The eight essays in Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada focus on redressing this bias.

Ronald Niezen examines the ways the recent emergence of an internationally recognized identity - 'indigenous peoples' - intersects with another recent international movement - the development of universal human rights laws and principles. This movement makes use of human rights instruments and the international organizations of states to resist the political, cultural, and economic incursions of individual states.