Uncertain Accommodation: Aboriginal Identity and Group Rights in the Supreme Court of Canada

by Dimitrios Panagos

Overview

In 1982, Canada formally recognized Aboriginal rights within its Constitution. The move reflected a consensus that states should and could use group rights to protect and accommodate subnational groups within their borders. Decades later, however, no one is happy. This state of affairs, Panagos argues, is rooted in a failure to define what aboriginality means, which has led to the promotion and protection of a single vision of aboriginality – that of the justices of the Supreme Court. He concludes that there can be no justice so long as the state continues to safeguard a set of values and interests defined by non-Aboriginal people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780774832397
Publisher:	University of British Columbia Press
Publication date:	04/01/2017
Series:	Law and Society
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dimitrios Panagos is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Memorial University.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1 The Historical and Legal Framework for Section 35

2 Competing Approaches and Conceptualizations of Aboriginality

3 The Case for a Relational Approach

4 The Nation-to-Nation, Colonial, and Citizen-State Approaches

5 Submissions to the Court

6 What the Justices Said

7 Aboriginal Rights Jurisprudence and Identity Contestation

8 A Problematic Conception of Rights

Conclusion

Notes

References

Index

What People are Saying About This

Burke Hendrix

With clarity and insight, Dimitrios Panagos traces the origins and subsequent judicial interpretations of section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982, and shows that the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence has failed to take seriously the self-understandings of Aboriginal peoples. This highly readable book powerfully demonstrates how theory and legality can illuminate each other, and it reveals the distance that Canada has yet to go to build a sufficiently rich conception of its relationship with Aboriginal peoples.