Culture and the Judiciary: The Meaning of the Culture Concept as a Source of Aboriginal Rights in Canada

Canadian Journal of Law and Society

Volumn 18, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 1-26

  Niezen, Ronald ^a  

^a HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY   (Germany)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34247443603     PISSN: 08293201     EISSN: 19110227     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0829320100007687     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. R. v. Van der Peet, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 507 at para. 3.
2. James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988) at 338.
3. Eric Hobsbawm & Terrence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983).
4. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) at 13.
5. R. v. Marshall (No. 2), [1999] 3 S.C.R. 533 at para. 2.
6. Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010 at para. 3.
7. Dara Culhane provides a detailed examination of the Delgamuukw case, with an emphasis on judicial process as a mechanism for the extinguishment of distinct aboriginal rights and title. See Dara Culhane, The Pleasure of the Crown: Anthropology, Law and First Nations (Burnaby, British Columbia: Talon Books, 1998).
8. Van der Peet, The Pleasure of the Crown: Anthropology, Law and First Nations 1 at para. 3.
9. The following summary of the antecedents of the Canadian Supreme Court's approach to culture owes a great deal to Michael Asch's “The Judicial Conceptualization of Culture after Delgamuukw and Van der Peet” (2000) 5:2 Rev. Const. Stud. 119.
10. In re: Southern Rhodesia, (1919) AC 210 (PC) note 4 at 233–34
11. cited in Asch, AC, at 121.
12. Hamlet of Baker Lake v. Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development et al. [1980] 1 F.C. 518 at 557–558
13. cited in Michael Asch, F.C. at 122.
14. F.c. 13
15. F.C., at 559.
16. Van der Peet, F.C. 1 at para. 56 [emphasis in original]
17. This point is especially clearly expressed the dissenting opinion of Justice L'Heureux-Dube” in R. v. Van der Peer. “Aboriginal people's occupation and use of North American territory was not static, nor, as a general principle, should be the aboriginal rights flowing from it. Natives migrated in response to events such as war, epidemic, famine, dwindling game reserves, etc. Aboriginal practices, traditions and customs also changed and evolved, including the utilization of the land, methods of hunting and fishing, trade of goods between tribes, and so on (…) Accordingly, the notion of aboriginal rights must be open to fluctuation, change and evolution, not only from one native group to another, but also over time”, F.C., at para. 113.
18. Van der Peet, F.C. 1 at para. 65.
19. Patrick Macklem makes a similar observation when he writes, “By protecting only practices, customs, and traditions integral to Aboriginal cultures, the Court treats Aboriginal cultural difference as the only aspect of indigenous difference that possesses constitutional significance.” Patrick Macklem, Indigenous Difference and the Constitution of Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992) at 61.
20. Van der Peet, Indigenous Difference and the Constitution of Canada 1 at para. 45.
21. R. v. Gladstone, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 723 at para. 22.
22. Marshall, S.C.R. 5, Motion for Rehearing and Stay at 2.
23. Marshall, S.C.R. 5 at para. 40.
24. M.N.R. v. Mitchell, [2001] 1 S.C.R. 911 at para. 153.
25. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 19 December 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 171,art.27[ICCPR].
26. See Robin Fisher, “Judging History: Reflections on the Reasons for Judgment in Delgamuukw v. B.C.” (1992) British Columbia Studies 45.
27. See Culhane, British Columbia Studies 7, for a detailed account of this testimony and of Justice McEachern's decision.
28. See, for example: Donald Bourgeois, “The Role of the Historian in the Litigation Process,” (1986) Canadian Historical Review. 67:2: 195–205
29. Dickason, CM. and R.D. Gidney, “History and Advocacy: Some Relflections on the Historian's Role in Litigation” (1987) 68:4 Canadian Historical Review 576–585
30. Arthur Ray “Creating the Image of the Savage in Defence of the Crown: The Ethnohistorian in Court” (1990) 6:2 Native Studies Review 13.
31. Marshall, Native Studies Review 5 at para. 37.
32. Cited in Boyce Richardson, Strangers Devour the Land (Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre, 1991) at 41.
33. Mitchell, Strangers Devour the Land 23 at 2.
34. James Anaya, Indigenous Peoples in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) at 4.
35. I discuss the connection between human rights and indigenous identity in The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003).
36. Mitchell, The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity 23 at 3.
37. ICCPR, The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity 26.
38. The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity, at para. 2.2.
39. Martin Scheinin, “The Right to Enjoy a Distinct Culture: Indigenous and Competing Uses of Land” in Theodore Orlin, Allan Rosas & Martin Scheinin, eds., The Jurisprudence of Human Rights Law: A Comparative Interpretive Approach (Turku/Abo: Institute for Human Rights, Abo Akademi University, 2000) 159 at 169.
40. The Jurisprudence of Human Rights Law: A Comparative Interpretive Approach, at 197–198.
41. Max Oleschaeger, The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991) at 8.
42. The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology, at 14.
43. Shepard Krech III, The Ecological Indian; Myth and History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999) at 213.
44. Chris Morris, “Non-native fishermen in NB call for immediate end to Burnt Church fishery” Canadian Press (17 September 2001).
45. Van der Peet, “Non-native fishermen in NB call for immediate end to Burnt Church fishery” 1 at 2.
46. Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism, ed. by Amy Gutmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) at 38.
47. This test of cultural distinctiveness is outlined under the heading, “The Aboriginal Right” in R. v. Van der Peet, Multiculturalism, 1 at para. 2–3.