"Today is a time of economic rebirth for Aboriginal people in Canada. The federal government has committed billions of dollars to Aboriginal business initiatives, and courts are actively settling a range of claims. Innovative business models, new forms of property, and daring ventures and partnerships flourish across Canada, with many more planned.
This volume explores the relationship between Indigenous self-determination - specifically practices of law and governance - and Indigenous social and economic development.
This book addresses legal aspects of sustainable development and offers the latest thinking on a wide range of current themes. By taking a cross-cutting approach, it adds considerably to the exploration of this emerging scientific field. Twenty-nine original contributions present innovative thoughts and replicable ideas from this exciting, new area, which will be of value to practitioners and researchers alike.These contributions are allocated into a horizontal and sectorial part. The section covering horizontal policies has five sub-parts: 1) general aspects; 2) human and intellectual property rights; 3) communication and social enterprise governance; 4) public participation and 5) assessment tools. The second part on sectorial policies also has five sub-parts: 1) forest and water management; 2) renewable energy; 3) cities, waste and material management; 4) biodiversity, nature conservation, oceans and spatial planning and 5) agriculture and rural policy. It offers a multifaceted discussion of sustainable development and law by authors from five continents and from both the public and the private sectors. This selection guarantees a broad view that presents the more theoretical arguments from the academic as well as the practical perspective. Furthermore, the authorship includes senior, highly experienced academics and practitioners as well as those at the start of their career. This ensures thoughtful expansions of established theories as well as the emergence of innovative ideas. Moreover, the ten sub-parts bring together likeminded thoughts, resulting in an exchange of different viewpoints on a similar theme. This allows the readers to concentrate on individual chapters, while at the same time discovering a variety of thoughts and ideas.
Canada's Indigenous Constitution reflects on the nature and sources of law in Canada, beginning with the conviction that the Canadian legal system has helped to engender the high level of wealth and security enjoyed by people across the country. However, longstanding disputes about the origins, legitimacy, and applicability of certain aspects of the legal system have led John Borrows to argue that Canada's constitution is incomplete without a broader acceptance of Indigenous legal traditions. With characteristic richness and eloquence, John Borrows explores legal traditions, the role of governments and courts, and the prospect of a multi-juridical legal culture, all with a view to understanding and improving legal processes in Canada. He discusses the place of individuals, families, and communities in recovering and extending the role of Indigenous law within both Indigenous communities and Canadian society more broadly. This is a major work by one of Canada's leading legal scholars, and an essential companion to Drawing Out Law: A Spirit's Guide.
The North American Arctic addresses the emergence of a new security relationship within the North American North. It focuses on current and emerging security issues that confront the North American Arctic and that shape relationships between and with neighbouring states (Alaska in the US; Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Canada; Greenland and Russia). Identifying the degree to which ‘domain awareness’ has redefined the traditional military focus, while a new human rights discourse undercuts traditional ways of managing sovereignty and territory, the volume’s contributors question normative security arrangements. Although security itself is not an obsolete concept, our understanding of what constitutes real human-centred security has become outdated. The contributors argue that there are new regionally specific threats originating from a wide range of events and possibilities, and very different subjectivities that can be brought to understand the shape of Arctic security and security relationships in the twenty-first century.
Indigenous traditions can be uplifting, positive, and liberating forces when they are connected to living systems of thought and practice. Problems arise when they are treated as timeless models of unchanging truth that require unwavering deference and unquestioning obedience. Freedom and Indigenous Constitutionalism celebrates the emancipatory potential of Indigenous traditions, considers their value as the basis for good laws and good lives, and critiques the failure of Canadian constitutional traditions to recognize their significance. Demonstrating how Canada’s constitutional structures marginalize Indigenous peoples’ ability to exercise power in the real world, John Borrows uses Ojibwe law, stories, and principles to suggest alternative ways in which Indigenous peoples can work to enhance freedom. Among the stimulating issues he approaches are the democratic potential of civil disobedience, the hazards of applying originalism rather than living tree jurisprudence in the interpretation of Aboriginal and treaty rights, American legislative actions that could also animate Indigenous self-determination in Canada, and the opportunity for Indigenous governmental action to address violence against women.
This book explores three particular strategies in the extractives sector for creating shared wealth, increased labour opportunities and positive social, environmental and economic outcomes from corporate projects, namely: state wealth funds (SWF), local content policies (LCP) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Collectively, the chapters explore the associated experiences and challenges in different parts of the world with the view to inform equitable and sustainable development for the communities living adjacent to extractives sites and the wider society and environment. Examples of LCPs, SWFs and CSR practices from 12 jurisdictions with diverse experiences offer usefull insights. The book illuminates challenges and opportunities for sustainable development outcomes of the extractives sector. It reflects the need to take on board the lessons of these global experiences in order to improve outcomes for poverty reduction, inequality reduction and sustainable development.
This edited collection is an interdisciplinary and international collaborative book that critically investigates the growing phenomenon of Indigenous-industry agreements – agreements that are formed between Indigenous peoples and companies involved in the extractive natural resource industry. These agreements are growing in number and relevance, but there has yet to be a systematic study of their formation and implementation. This groundbreaking collection is situated within frameworks that critically analyze and navigate relationships between Indigenous peoples and the extraction of natural resources. These relationships generate important questions in the context of Indigenous-industry agreements in diverse resource-rich countries including Australia and Canada, and regions such as Africa and Latin America. Beyond domestic legal and political contexts, the collection also interprets, navigates, and deploys international instruments such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in order to fully comprehend the diverse expressions of Indigenous-industry agreements. Indigenous-Industry Agreements, Natural Resources and the Law presents chapters that comprehensively review agreements between Indigenous peoples and extractive companies. It situates these agreements within the broader framework of domestic and international law and politics, which define and are defined by the relationships between Indigenous peoples, extractive companies, governments, and other actors. The book presents the latest state of knowledge and insights on the subject and will be of value to researchers, academics, practitioners, Indigenous communities, policymakers, and students interested in extractive industries, public international law, Indigenous rights, contracts, natural resources law, and environmental law.
More than thirty years ago, section 35 of the Constitution Act recognized and affirmed “the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.” Hailed at the time as a watershed moment in the legal and political relationship between Indigenous peoples and settler societies in Canada, the constitutional entrenchment of Aboriginal and treaty rights has proven to be only the beginning of the long and complicated process of giving meaning to that constitutional recognition. In From Recognition to Reconciliation, twenty leading scholars reflect on the continuing transformation of the constitutional relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state. The book features essays on themes such as the role of sovereignty in constitutional jurisprudence, the diversity of methodologies at play in these legal and political questions, and connections between the Canadian constitutional experience and developments elsewhere in the world.
