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Williams, Kevin --- "Book Review - Indigenous Peoples' Rights in Australia, Canada and New Zealand" [1999] IndigLawB 75; (1999) 4(23) Indigenous Law Bulletin 31


Book Review- Indigenous Peoples' Rights in Australia, Canada and New Zealand

by Paul Havemann (ed)

OUP Auckland RRP $95.00

Reviewed by Kevin Williams

This excellent book canvasses a number of issues central to the rights of indigenous peoples. The editor, Paul Havemann, is Foundation Professor of Law at Waikato University, New Zealand. He has managed to assemble a wealth of knowledge from numerous eminent scholars in law, history, sociology and criminology in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Each of the book's six sections discusses a separate aspect of indigenous rights: Part I 'Indigenous Peoples' Perspectives: Sovereignty, Self Determination and Coexistence'; Part II 'Settling the Anglo-Commonwealth'; Part III `Politicising and Internationalising Indigenous Peoples Rights Claims'; Part IV 'Colonisation, Criminalisation and Indigenous Peoples' Rights'; Part V Administering Indigenous Affairs: Citizenship and self-determination' and Part VI 'Constitutionalising Indigenous Rights?'.

There are also three very useful chronologies which chart the relationship between indigenous peoples and international law from Columbus to the present day. Particularly interesting is the third parallel chronology comparing the major events that affected indigenous peoples in the three countries, from the period of first contact through to the present day.

Other highlights of the book are Marcia Langton's discussion in Part I of the growing cooperation between indigenous and mainstream managers of northern Australian landscapes, followed by Ranginni Walker's article on Maori sovereignty in both colonial and post-colonial times. In 'Settling the Anglo-Commonwealth', three historians, Henry Reynolds (Australia), Ken Coates (Canada) and M P K Sorrenson (New Zealand), each trace the distinct processes of colonisation in their own countries, and document how legal artifice and genocide played a central role in the dispossession of indigenous peoples in all three countries. Part IV focusses on the legacy of colonisation in the criminal justice system, and includes material on social welfare and criminal justice in New Zealand, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in Australia, and the Canadian Commissions of Inquiry into Aboriginal Peoples and Criminal Justice.

Citizenship and self-determination is the theme of Part V and the emphasis is on cultural imperialism; the chapter title, 'Living Together but not Neighbours' neatly sums up the situation of indigenous peoples in each of the three countries. The final section discusses constitutional issues and how they have evolved from non-recognition of indigenous rights to a form of limited recognition. This book offers an excellent insight into many of the issues confronting indigenous peoples as we move into the next century. Only time will tell how the three countries whose histories are discussed measure up against those well known words: 'the test of a nation's civility and civilisation is the manner in which it treats its most underprivileged minority.'

Kevin Williams is an Indigenous lawyer from the Wakka-Wakka people. He is currently completing a Master ofLaws degree on native title and international law through Southern Cross University.


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