‘Witnessing the Violence of the Settler State in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria and Lee Maracle’s Celia’s Song’

A Canadian literary scholar based in Australia, I read “Aboriginal/Indigenous” Australian and Canadian literatures in English as sites where the ways in which we perceive racial and cultural violence might be re-configured. Cognizant of the role that literary studies discourse has had and continues to have in these nations as a tool for the maintenance of official, state-recognised ‘reconciliation’ narratives, my work looks instead to the literary encounter itself as a potential site for registering, or witnessing, the violence that the settler state attempts to screen off behind the scenes of its official attitudes towards reconciliation. This article will explore the concept of literary witnessing in an archive of trans-Indigenous literature across settler colonial states, linking award-winning authors Alexis Wright (Waanyi, writing in Australia) and Lee Maracle (Sto:lo, writing in Canada). Analysing Wright’s Carpentaria and Maracle’s Celia’s Song, I trace how these novels enact and inspire, but also complicate, witnessing in Canada and Australia (both of which maintain official policies of inclusion and multiculturalism, but are actually held up by a regime of continuing racialized violence). I also examine how these works of literature model ignorance and choosing to turn away as a form of violence and a roadblock to justice. Finally, I ask how these novels might provide models for subjectivity and justice that subvert the judiciary systems of these settler states, dislodging ‘witnessing’ from its place in discourses of state-authorized “justice”, and placing it in the realm of Indigenous law and the potential of an ethical (literary) encounter.

Decolonizing Authority: The Conflict on Wet'suwet’en Territory

One of the leading features of colonialism is the imposition on a given territory and people a framework for what constitutes authority that renders pre-existing governing practices and legal orders unrecognizable as features of legitimate law and governance. Understood in this way, colonialism renders Indigenous law and governing practices invisible. As a result, decolonization requires changing how authority is apprehended and not only how it is distributed. This article compares two frameworks of authority in relation to the conflict on Wet'suwet’en territory: liberal postcolonial statism and relational pluralism. It shows how each framework provides a distinct lens through which to understand the pertinent features of political authority but argues that relational pluralism presents a better account of how to reconceive political authority in the context of real-world conflict.

PERLINDUNGAN MASYARAKAT HUKUM ADAT DI WILAYAH PESISIR PASCA BERLAKUNYA UU NOMOR 11 TAHUN 2020 TENTANG CIPTA KERJA

Indonesia as an archipelagic country consisting of large and small islands separated by the ocean with geographical conditions has a total area of ​​7,827,087 Km2 and is located in Equatorial emeralds have a wealth of abundant natural resources, especially in the sea ​​and coastal areas which cover of the territory of Indonesia (5.8 million Km2). Article 18 B paragraph (2) and Article 28 I paragraph (3) of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia as the constitutional basis for recognition and protection the rights of indigenous peoples in coastal areas and small islands. Resource wealth nature in the form of coastal areas and small islands controlled and managed by the state tothe greatest prosperity of the people. State recognition of the existence of the legal community customs related to natural resources are inconsistent. The formulation of the problem from this research is (1) The legal construction of the Job Creation Law on the protection of customary law communities in the territory coast. (2) Implications of the Job Creation Law on the protection of customary law communities in the region coast. The research method in this writing is normative juridical. In summary, the result of In this research, the desired law is a law that provides protection against community members including customary law communities in coastal areas and islands small island, then an impartial legal instrument in the recognition of existence Indigenous Law Communities, for example in the Job Creation Law, which has not been in favor of Protection of Indigenous Peoples in Coastal Areas and Small Islands.

Lost from Sight: Developing Recognition of Māori Law in Aotearoa New Zealand

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the state legal system is increasingly drawing on aspects of Māori law. Recent decisions suggest that the courts are willing to consider Māori law as a source of New Zealand law. This marks a change from earlier approaches which recognised discrete customary practices as customary law. Questions of state recognition of customary law have tended to focus attention on common law tests and so obscure processes of the Indigenous legal system, the sources of Indigenous law, and Indigenous forms of legal reasoning and communication. This article suggests that by focusing instead on understanding the application of Māori law within a fuller cultural context, the New Zealand courts may be better able to reveal and understand the Indigenous legal principles and processes at work. This would include engaging with a different range of legal sources, including working with Māori stories as legal texts, to make visible aspects of Indigenous law that can help to drive developments in the state legal system.

Part IX International Environmental Law in National/Regional Courts, Ch.65 North America

This chapter assesses international environmental law in the courts of North America. In particular, it explores the minimal engagement of US, Canadian, and Mexican courts with international environmental law. Environmental law cases in Canada, Mexico, and the United States are not immune to international law and international norms. However, international environmental lawyers may be forced to look to some unlikely and unusual places to find international environmental law's normative influence. Environmental law cases in North America seem poised to engage most significantly with international law not in the ‘bright lights’ but rather on the side-lines, where environmental law norms interface with climate law, private international law, Indigenous law, and human rights law.

The importance of considering African indigenous languages in the decolonisation of legal education and practice

Language and culture are intimately connected thus we cannot understand culture without having direct access to its language. Learning a language therefore is equivalent to learning a particular society’s behaviour, culture and custom. Therefore it should be emphasised that language is culture and culture is language. How then can African indigenous law or African customary law be promoted within the law curriculum when South African indigenous languages are marginalised? The issue of the promotion of indigenous languages is a very contentious and crucial issue which also came to the fore during the Fees Must Fall Movement wherein academics were accused of being intellectually colonised. For instance student leaders echoed during their gatherings that “our academics are intellectually colonised; they are academic thugs” (Makelela 2018; 1). Thus the Fees Must Fall Movement as articulated by Makelela (2018; 2) “presents a continuation of an age-old struggle with more focus on the negative effects of corporate African universities, with issues around culture and language not explicitly stated”. This article reflects on the current situation with regard the teaching of African customary law and argues that the subject remains marginalised. The immediate impact of the state of affairs is that a form of injustice takes place when litigants affected by African customary law are before courts. This situation as emphasised in this article emanates from the fact that South African indigenous languages are marginalised thus resulting in the ultimate marginalisation of indigenous culture. The central argument of this article is that in the absence of a commitment to promote South African indigenous languages African customary law as a subject will not be fully beneficial to African indigenous people and various communities.

Antinomi Regulations on the Recognition and Enforcement of Ulayat Right from Indigenous Peoples

Ulayat Right is a historical right owned by tribal groups scattered throughout Indonesia that contains the value of local wisdom in the arrangement of control, use, utilization, supply, and maintenance of agrarian resources. The substance of Ulayat Right and the organization of the power of indigenous peoples as the executor of the authority of Ulayat Right became a model in the development of agrarian law Nasional as stated in the Basic Agrarian Law (UUPA). The state has an obligation to recognize in the sense of respect while protecting and fulfilling what is the right of every citizen. One of them is the right of control and ownership of Ulayat Right that until now has not been implemented optimally, as if the mastery and ownership of Ulayat Right by indigenous peoples is not fully accessible from the LAW and other laws and regulations. Based on the background of the above problems, the purpose of this paper is to review the Antinomics of The Ulayat Right Regulation of Indigenous Peoples with public-private and private-dimensional ulayat land and explore and analyze the urgency of protection of Indigenous Peoples' Rights in Indonesia. This paper is normative research, the approach used is a statutory approach (statute approach), presented descriptively-perspective and analyzed qualitatively. The conclusion in this paper Is the Authority of the Indigenous Law Community, while the private dimension appears in the manifestation of Ulayat Right as belonging together. So that the scope includes recognition and confirmation, granting of land rights on Ulayat Right, transfer and eradication of indemnity rights and the removal of private Ulayat Right. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a draft law governing the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.