A shot in the dark - or rather, in the ether

[ciroccoj]

So, I've got my term paper for AbLaw due on Monday, and I'm kinda beating my head against the wall. Because my topic is "Sovereignty and Indigenous Peoples", and my outline is

1. Introduction
   
2. Dueling Meanings: Who is “Indigenous” and Who are “Peoples”
   
   1. As defined by International Law
      
   2. As defined by Indigneous People(s)
   
   
3. What is the meaning of “Peoples”?
   
4. What is the meaning of “Sovereignty”?
   
   
   1. International context
      
   2. Indigenous context
      
   3. Canadian context
   
   
5. Indigenous Sovereignty: Moving from Imagining to Actuality, Three Models
   
   1. Indigenous Sovereignty in the United States
      
   2. Indigenous Sovereignty in Australia
      
   3. Indigenous Sovereignty in Canada
   
   
6. Part V: Critical Analysis
   
   1. What does international law acknowledge/not acknowledge and what understandings must be addressed?
      
   2. How does domestic application accord with / not accord with domestic application of law in an Indigenous context?
      
   3. Can International Law address Indigenous sovereignty meaningfully? Can domestic law?
   4. Can Indigenous law? How?
   
   
7. Part VI: Conclusion

What's the problem here? I have 20-25 double-spaced pages to do this.

Doh.

So, here's a forlorn plea: any Australians or Americans (or Canadians) who have any kind of familiarity/knowledge/vague ideas on how your country deals with the issue of indigenous sovereignty... help? I've done lots of readings, but there are conflicting bits here and there and since I'm not familiar with the countries in question, it's hard to tell which articles/books are putting forward well-reasoned, realistic points of view, and which are spouting gibberish that would leave most Australians/Americans perplexed and wondering if they're talking about the same country. And since I've only got a couple pages to spend on each country, I don't want to fritter it away reproducing said gibberish.

Any ideas? Attitudes, articles, judgments, websites, general feel for indigenous sovereignty in your country? Anything that, if I don't write about it, would make an Australian/American slapping their forehead and saying How could you MISS that??!!

Comments

[leaper182.livejournal.com]

Indigenous sovereignty?

Um, is that like Puerto Rico sorta-semi-having sovereignty, even if they're a territory of the US?

*blinks rapidly and is very sorry that you got surprised with this*

[nonniemous.livejournal.com]

Technically the reservations in the US are sovereign nations, with their own laws and police forces and so on. But the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has an incredible amount of power, too. So for issues within their own "borders" supposedly they're free to adjudicate as they see fit, but the greater truth is that they are governed by US cultural norms more than any other.

National Congress of American Indians (http://www.ncai.org/) is recommended by mininsinoo as the place to go to learn about US Native Americans issues. (She's Ojibway, I think. But I could be way off on that.)

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

The cynical Australian position would be "sovereignty? What sovereignty?"

Having only a few pages to work with, it might be difficult to really cover things like the transition from Mabo to Wik to the Ten Point Plan, to the Yorta Yorta case which pretty much knocked the legs out from under what was left (and there are two more cases in there, and I'm ashamed that I can't remember the names of them, but they're the "bundle of rights" cases)...

If you've got a specific focus I could maybe help a little: recent developments like the mining agreements, or the Native Title Tribunal, things like that. But mostly it is summed up by "sovereignty? What sovereignty?"

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

For the critical analysis section on "Can International Law help", the Mabo case in Australia (Mabo No 2, in the High Court) used a lot of International Law, specifically the Western Sahara case. It's one of the right-wing criticisms of the case, that they went to International Law. But I honestly don't think that any sane person would try to say Mabo isn't good law any more. Of course, they've managed to undermine it all with legislation by now, anyway, so they don't need to say that it wasn't good law...

[bandgeek.livejournal.com]

calendae is, if I'm not mistaken, an Alaska Native, and she knows a lot about this sort of thing. I'm sure she'd be willing to talk to you. :)

[sidravitale]

Hey, I know I'm late to the game here, but you might want to check out my profs here at NESL, who write on the area:

http://www.nesl.edu/faculty/DUSSIAS.CFM
http://www.nesl.edu/faculty/MANUS.CFM

(includes list of works).

Prof. Manus published a really interesting overview of evolving law in Australia, Canada, and the US that you may find useful. (Indigenous Peoples' Environmental Rights: Evolving Common Law Perspectives in Canada, Australia and the United States, 33 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 1 (2006).)

Plus, they're working on a book together in this area, right this second. Prof. Dussias taught the Indigenous People's Rights course I took last year, and we surveyed Canadian, US, Aussie and NZ law. I just can't find the syllabus with all the readings. Oh, and here's why, there wasn't a single syllabus with all the readings on it. Here's some of the readings that I found:

Siegfried Wiessner, Rights and Status of Indigenous Peoples: A Global Comparative and International Legal Analysis, 12 Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 57 (1999);

Alison M. Dussias, Geographically-Based and Membership-Based Views of Indian Tribal Sovereignty: The Supreme Court's Changing Vision, 55 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 1;

Mireya Maritza Pena Guzman, The Emerging System of International Protection of Indigenous Peoples' Rights, 9 St. Thomas L. Rev. 251 (1996);

Stuart Banner, Why Terra Nullius? Anthropology and Property Law in Early Australia, 23 Law & History Rev. 95 (2005).

Anyway, if you find yourself flailing and want to talk, either one of them will at least read an email from you, if you say "Sidra Vitale sent me". Or, email me (see my LJ profile), especially if you have difficulty laying hands on any of these articles.