Aboriginal Title and Indigenous Peoples ─ Canada, Australia and New Zealand

Legal scholars and practitioners, historians, and anthropologists who have worked with native peoples in the three countries explore issues of Aboriginal title in relatively similar time frames and under comparable common law regimes. The conflict over land between indigenous peoples and settlers during the second half of the 19th century in Australia, New Zealand, and the western part of Canada, involved such issues as how land was settled, what use could be made of it by whom, what rights Aboriginals had at customary and common law, how their voices were made known by word and action, how their title was expropriated and extinguished, who spoke for whom in that process, and the consequences of the legal disputes and of the settlements that emerged from them. Among the topics are the failure to recognize indigenous jurisdiction in Australia and Canada, the defense of native title and dominion in 16th-century Mexico compared with Delgamuukw, a critical comparison of the sources and content of indigenous land rights in Australia and Canada, claiming native title in the foreshore and seabed, and three Stony Nakoda cases illustrating waterpower developments and native water rights struggles in the North American west during the early 20th century. Distributed in the US by UTP Distribution. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Louis A. Knafla is a professor emeritus of theDepartment of History and director of socio-legal studies at theUniversity of Calgary. Haijo Westra is a professor ofGreek and Roman studies at the University of Calgary.

Contributors: Brian Ballantyne, Paul L.A.H.Chartrand, Peter W. Hutchins, Kenichi Matsui, Kent McNeil, NicolasPeterson, Arthur Ray, Bruce Rigsby, Jacinta Ruru, and David Yarrow