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Indigenous Title and its Contextual Economic Implications: Lessons for International Law From Canada’s Tsilhqot’in Decision

Part of: International Indigenous Rights, Financial Decisions, and Local Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Dwight Newman
Dwight Newman*
Affiliation:
James Madison Program, Princeton University (2015–16) Indigenous Rights in Constitutional and International Law, University of Saskatchewan
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International law on the rights of Indigenous peoples has developed rapidly in recent decades. In the latest phase of this development, international instruments on the rights of Indigenous peoples have increasingly offered universalized statements. However, the reality remains that the implementation of Indigenous rights must take place in particular circumstances in particular states. The form of domestic implementation of Indigenous rights may or may not connect closely to international law statements on these rights, and there may be good reasons for that. This essay takes up a particular example of Indigenous land rights and a significant recent development on land rights in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Information

Type
Symposium on International Indigenous Rights, Financial Decisions, and Local Policy
Information
AJIL Unbound , Volume 109 , 2015 , pp. 215 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2015

References

1 See, e.g., Anaya, James, Indigenous Peoples in International Law (2d ed. 2004)Google Scholar; Alexandra Xanthaki, Indigenous Rights and United Nations Standards: Self-Determination, Culture, and Land (2007).

2 Cf., e.g., Karen Engle, the Elusive Promise of Indigenous Development: Rights, Culture, Strategy (2010) (discussing complex pressures on minority communities’ self-identification generated by possibility of legal rights based on Indigenous status).

3 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Ga Res. 61/295, arts. 26(1), 26(2) (Sept. 13, 2007). See generally, Reflections on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Allen, Stephen & Xanthaki, Alexandra eds., 2011)Google Scholar (offering a series of possible views on the international law status of the instrument); Barelli, Mauro, Justice in International Law: the Legal, Political, and Moral Dimensions of Indigenous Rights (forthcoming 2016)Google Scholar (offering nuanced discussion of legal status of Undrip); Newman, Dwight, Africa and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in Perspectives on the Rights of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples in Africa 141 (Dersso, Solomon ed., 2010)Google Scholar (discussing the complex African engagement with UNDRIP); Dwight G. Newman, Revisiting the Duty to Consult Aboriginal Peoples (2014) (tracing the moves of Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia toward endorsements that reversed their votes against Undrip, though with more recent developments including the indications of the new Liberal government elected in Canada in 2015 that it intends to implement all of UNDRIP).

4 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Ga Res. 61/295, arts. 26(1), 26(2) (Sept. 13, 2007).

5 Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, [2014] 2 S.C.R. 257 (Can.).

6 See generally, Lehmann, Karin, Aboriginal Title, Indigenous Rights, and the Right to Culture, 20 S. Afr. J. Hum. Rts. 86 (2004)Google Scholar.

7 See generally, P.G. Mchugh, Aboriginal Title: the Modern Jurisprudence of Tribal Land Rights (2011).

8 Cf. also, Anne-Marie Slaughter, A New World Order (2004) (discussing the forms of global governance, including those taking place through analogous sorts of transjudicialism).

9 Cf. The Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community v. Nicaragua, Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R., (ser. C) No. 79 (Aug. 31, 2001); Jérémie Gilbert, Indigenous Peoples Land Rights Under International Law: From Victims to Actors (2006).

10 See, e.g., Borrows, John, Aboriginal Title in Tsilhqot’in v. British Columbia, [2014] Scc 44, Māori L. Rev. (August 2014)Google Scholar.

11 See generally, Calder v. British Columbia, [1973] S.C.R. 313 (Can.); Delgamuukw v. British Columbia (Attorney General), [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010 (Can.); R. v. Marshall/Bernard, [2005] 2 S.C.R. 220 (Can.). See also generally, Régimbald, Guy & Newman, Dwight, The Law of the Canadian Constitution (2013)Google Scholar (discussing interaction of Aboriginal title case law and mobile communities).

12 See, e.g., Swain, Harry & Baillie, James, Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia: Aboriginal Title and Section 35 , 56 Can. Bus. L.J. 265 (2014)Google Scholar.

13 Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, [2014] 2 S.C.R. 257, paras. 24ff. (Can.).

14 Id. at paras. 15, 74.

15 Id.

16 Id. at para. 74 (stating that “[w]hether a particular use is irreconcilable with the ability of succeeding generations to benefit from the land will be a matter to be determined when the issue arises.”).

17 See generally, Odumosu-Ayanu, Ibironke, Indigenous Peoples, International Law, and Extractive Industry Contracts, 109 AJIL Unbound 220 (2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Haida Nation v. British Columbia (Minister of Forests), [2004] 3 S.C.R. 511 (Can.). See generally, Dwight G. Newman, the Duty to Consult: New Relationships With Aboriginal Peoples (2009); Newman, supra note 3.

19 See generally, Dwight Newman, Natural Resource Jurisdiction in Canada (2013) and Newman, supra note 3 (discussing some of the pressures that lead to IBAS and typical clauses in IBAS).

20 Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, [2014] 2 S.C.R. 257, para 97 (Can.).

21 Id. at para. 92.

22 See generally, Bas Rombouts, Having A Say: Indigenous Peoples, International Law, and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (2014).

23 Haida Nation v. British Columbia (Minister of Forests), [2004] 3 S.C.R. 511, para. 11 (Can.) (stating that “[a]s this framework is applied, courts, in the age-old tradition of the common law, will be called on to fill in the details of the duty to consult and accommo date.”).

24 See, e.g., Rubin, Paul H., Why is the Common Law Efficient?, 6 J. Leg. Stud. 51 (1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Priest, George L., The Common Law Process and the Selection of Efficient Rules, 6 J. Leg. Stud. 65 (1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goodman, John C., An Economic Theory of the Evolution of Common Law, 7 J. Leg. Stud. 393 (1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cooter, Robert & Kornhauser, Lewis, Can Litigation Improve the Law Without the Help of Judges?, 9 J. Leg. Stud. 139 (1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zywicki, Todd J., The Rise and Fall of Efficiency in the Common Law: A Supply-Side Analysis, 97 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1551 (2003)Google Scholar; Rubin, Paul H., Micro and Macro Legal Efficiency: Supply and Demand, 13 Sup. Ct. Econ. Rev. 19, 20-27 (2005)Google Scholar; Parisi, Francesco & Fon, Vincy, The Economics of Lawmaking (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 See, e.g., Swain & Baillie, supra note 12; Flanagan, Tom, Clarity and confusion? The new jurisprudence of aboriginal title, Fraser Institute Centre for Aboriginal Studies (2015)Google Scholar; Lavoie, Malcolm & Newman, Dwight, Mining and Aboriginal rights in Yukon: How certainty affects investor confidence, Fraser Institute Centre For Aboriginal Policy Studies (2015)Google Scholar.