The Struggles Indigenous Peoples Face to Obtain Justice

1571 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Challenges faced by indigenous people

There are over 5000 Indigenous communities in over 70 different countries. They are defined collectively under the term Indigenous Peoples (IPs) by the Cobo Report but this term also allows for their diversity. They face numerous legal issues in attempting to achieve their rights, so they have collectively united to access the remedies available to them to achieve justice.

Broad characteristics to define them are highlighted in the Mick Dodson report and include: connection with territory that pre dates invasion, social and cultural traditions such as affinity with the land and colonisation, resistance and resurgence.

The issues facing IPs is the struggle to collectively achieve four rights which are recognised under in international law. Self identification is the ability for a group to choose if that person is a member of that group and for an individual to identify themselves as belonging to that group. The problems with achieving this right is demonstrated in the 2002 Good Weekend Article "A white shade of Black" which highlighted a court case in Tasmania to judge who could vote in ATSIC elections.

Cultural integrity is the right of IPs to practice and preserve cultural traditions such as affinity with the land while also allowing them to access modem innovations. This is seen through the Inuit people of where who maintain a traditional life but use snow mobiles for hunting. Self determination is described by the United Nations Charter as the ability to "freely pursue their economic, social and political development". However the term "peoples" refers to post WWII decolonisation and there are questions as to whether it can apply to IPs.

Sovereignty is the ability of a people to form a nation-state, which has c...

... middle of paper ...

...002 shows how ineffective intergovernmental organisations are for IPs issues.

East Timor gained sovereignty after decades of colonisations in March 2002.

It can be seen to be fairly ineffective due to resource efficiency as it took 25 years. Also, it needed human rights abuses to occur before UN decided to send an INTERFET force under Australia. The documentary "A birth of a nation" also highlights that political will from Australia to act only came after economic interest in the North West oil shelf.

Therefore it can be seen that the remedies available to IPs to gain their rights and save their legal issues in only effective when political will of nation states allows international law to be effective in their own states. Accessibility to UN is also a problem. So sovereignty is seen as the ability to remedy IPs issues and also as the obstacle to saving them.

Show More
Related

  • Indian Horse Wagamese Analysis

    1457 Words  | 3 Pages

    The novel “Indian Horse” by Richard Wagamese demonstrates the many conflicts that indigenous people encounter on a daily basis. This includes things such as, the dangers they face and how they feel the need to flee to nature, where they feel the most safe. Another major issue they face is being stripped of their culture, and forcibly made to believe their culture is wrong and they are less of a human for being brought up that way, it makes them feel unworthy. Finally, when one is being criticised for a hobby they enjoy due to their indigenous upbringing, they make himself lose interest and stop the hobby as it makes them different and provokes torment. People who are trying

    Read More

  • The Effectiveness of the Law in Achieving Justice for Indigenous People

    3098 Words  | 7 Pages

    Indigenous People. In evaluating the Legal System’s response to Indigenous People and it’s achieving of justice, an outline of the history of Indigenous Australians - before and during settlement - as well as their status in Australian society today must be made. The dispossession of their land and culture has deprived Indigenous People of economic revenue that the land would have provided if not colonised, as well as their ... ... middle of paper ... ...

    Read More

  • Native American Sovereignty Research Paper

    694 Words  | 2 Pages

    The term sovereignty is a broad topic that has many different definitions. The most common definition is a nation or groups ability or right to govern themselves. Sovereignty is a term and idea that goes hand in hand with Native Americans throughout history. Native American tribes were once considered sovereign nation until shortly after the arrival of European settlers. Native Americans lost their sovereignty due to the forceful assimilation into white culture by European settlers. The problem with this is that Native Americans have been in North American, acting as self-governing groups, since the beginning days. What sets Native Americans apart from other “minority groups” is that they have existed as self-governing peoples and are more than a group

    Read More

  • Social Determinants Of Justice For Aboriginal People

    1216 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the video “Aboriginal Peoples -- It's time”, the main topic of the video is advocating for equity and justice for the aboriginal people. Aboriginal people is a collective name for the original peoples of North America and their descendants. The Canadian constitution recognizes three groups of Aboriginal peoples: Indians (commonly referred to as First Nations), Métis and Inuit. These are three distinct peoples with unique histories, languages, cultural practices and spiritual beliefs. More than 1.4 million people in Canada identify themselves as an Aboriginal person, according to the 2011

    Read More

  • Displacement and Mistreatment of Native Americans

    2250 Words  | 5 Pages

    The removal of Indian tribes was one of the tragic times in America’s history. Native Americans endured hard times when immigrants came to the New World. Their land was stolen, people were treated poorly, tricked, harassed, bullied, and much more. The mistreatment was caused mostly by the white settlers, who wanted the Indians land. The Indians removal was pushed to benefit the settlers, which in turn, caused the Indians to be treated as less than a person and pushed off of their lands. MOREEE

    Read More

  • Aboriginal Self Government and the Canadian Justice System

    2238 Words  | 5 Pages

    It is the belief of first nations that the healing process and renewal of relationships are the essential ingredients for the building of healthy First Nations communities. First nations realize that the current justice process does not address the real issues at hand nor does it fit into their traditional forms of achieving justice. In fact, the current justice process systematically removes the offenders from their people and communities effectively severing all ties and ...

    Read More

  • Iks by Lewis Thomas

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the “Iks” by Lewis Thomas, the author describes how a small tribe of hunters from northern Uganda called the Iks tries to survive after being forced by the government to give up their homes and living area and move to a poor hills and become farmers. Society is extremely harsh towards the Iks and this causes them to rebel and become abnormal. The Iks were a bunch of selfish people who only cared about themselves, left elders to starve and die, and did not cared about the children. They didn’t share things with each other and they find joy in the other’s misfortunes. Anthropologist were sent to observe the Iks, an anthropologist described the Iks to be ill- mannered fashion. Over the two years he had studied there, he was constantly being harassed and disgraced. After he had published his book, he wrote how he despised the Iks. Thomas then went on to say that he now sees similar behaviors implying on nations and cities compared to the Iks making points saying that the Iks share common characteristics of greed, cruezl, and selfish just like different nations fighting against each other.

    Read More

  • The Canadian Justice System V.s. Aboriginal People

    568 Words  | 2 Pages

    trial of two men for the 1971 murder of Helen Betty Osborne in The Pas Manitoba.

    Read More

  • Aboriginal Self Government

    1354 Words  | 3 Pages

    For Status Indians various activities have expanded nearby control under the Indian Act and permitted the arrangement of new administrative structures to supplant that act. On the other hand, numerous First Nations keep up that any type of assigned power is conflicting with an intrinsic right of self-government. Inuit have sought after self-government through open government courses of action in the north in conjunction with area claims, while the Métis have progressed different cases for area and self-government. Native people groups have additionally drawn on the privilege of self-determination and worldwide law to bolster their cases. The creating assemblage of global law on human rights has concentrated much consideration, as of late, on the privilege to self-determination as it applies to Aboriginal people groups. Native associations have contended that the characteristic right of self-government is a part of the privilege of self-determination perceived in the United Nations Charter and in the Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous

    Read More

  • Aboriginal Rights And Freedoms

    1638 Words  | 4 Pages

    Assess the extent to which Indigenous Australians have achieved rights and freedoms in the period from 1945-present.

    Read More

  • Oppression of Native Americans

    1987 Words  | 4 Pages

    Two-hundred years ago, there was a scientific study on the brains of Native Americans called the craniology and phrenology. The Europeans examined only indigenous people’s heads and were forbidden to use any European’s brains. The Europeans did three experiments, such as decapitating the tops of the heads and filling them with sand to see if their brains were smaller than blacks. The Europeans also looked at the bones and said that if the bones were in a certain way (such as natives cheek bones being up higher) the person was thought to be stupid. The last experiment the Europeans did to American Indians was that they had a small devise that they would put on the head and it would slice the brain open. There would be an award for retrieving a male’s brain that was five cents. By retrieving a woman’s brain the price would be three cents, and lastly a child’s brain which would be two cents. This is when the term redskin was invented (Poupart, 2014).

    Read More

  • Importance Of Country And Story

    1417 Words  | 3 Pages

    Indigenous people have identified themselves with country; they believe that they and the land are “one”, and that it is lived in and lived with. Indigenous people personify country as if it were a person, as something that connects itself to the land, people and earth, being able to give and receive life (Bird Rose, D. 1996). Country is sacred and interconnected within the indigenous community,

    Read More

  • Purpose Of The Yasuni-ITT Initiative

    635 Words  | 2 Pages

    Another purpose of this initiative is the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in the Yasuní and intangible area. Yasuni ITT is home to many species of animals, and indigenous peoples that are in this biosphe...

    Read More

  • Indigenous People

    4683 Words  | 10 Pages

    Indigenous people are those that are native to an area. Throughout the world, there are many groups or tribes of people that have been taken over by the Europeans in their early conquests throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by immigrating groups of individuals, and by greedy corporate businesses trying to take their land. The people indigenous to Australia, Brazil and South America, and Hawaii are currently fighting for their rights as people: the rights to own land, to be free from prejudice, and to have their lands protected from society.

    Read More

  • Essay On Indigenous Knowledge

    1066 Words  | 3 Pages

    Indigenous Knowledge (IK) can be broadly defined as the knowledge and skills that an indigenous (local) community accumulates over generations of living in a particular environment. IK is unique to given cultures, localities and societies and is acquired through daily experience. It is embedded in community practices, institutions, relationships and rituals. Because IK is based on, and is deeply embedded in local experience and historic reality, it is therefore unique to that specific culture; it also plays an important role in defining the identity of the community. Similarly, since IK has developed over the centuries of experimentation on how to adapt to local conditions. That is Indigenous ways of knowing informs their ways of being. Accordingly IK is integrated and driven from multiple sources; traditional teachings, empirical observations and revelations handed down generations. Under IK, language, gestures and cultural codes are in harmony. Similarly, language, symbols and family structure are interrelated. For example, First Nation had a

    Read More

More about The Struggles Indigenous Peoples Face to Obtain Justice

Open Document