2006 Handbooks

The special place of Indigenous peoples in Australia gives rise to unique questions of law. Most fundamentally, there is the challenge of acknowledging the existence of more than one legal order in the one geographical space. Following this, there are the terms of coexistence of these legal orders. And finally, to the extent that Indigenous peoples are subject to the official State and Commonwealth legal systems, there is a question of how effectively these legal systems regulate issues particular to Indigenous peoples? Are official laws adequately conscious of and sensitive to the difference of Indigenous peoples, and to the diversity of cultures and customs across Indigenous communities? Within this framework of inquiry, the unit discusses the concepts of sovereignty, treaty, cultural diversity, pluralism, identity and colonialism, and discusses in detail official laws in relation to native title, heritage protection, criminal law, and reparation for past injustices.