Reconciling Five Competing Conceptual Structures of Indigenous Peoples’ Claims in International and Comparative Law

Abstract

In memory of Andrew Gray, whose death in an airplane crash in Vanuatu robbed the indigenous peoples' movement of a selfless chronicler, indefatigable activist, and great friend. Each of these conceptual structures has its own style of argument, historical account and canon, patterns of legitimation and delegitimation, institutional adherents, discursive community, and boundary markers. The construction of conceptual structures and of lines between them is a form of political expression, but one that utilizes, and thus is conditioned by, while itself affecting, languages of law and philosophy. Claims by members of indigenous peoples are often claims to respect for basic human rights, for example a claim to be free from torture or slavery. Such claims usually are made against the state, but may be directed substantively at conduct by certain non-state groups, including armed bands, mining corporations, or indigenous peoples' organizations.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 55 citations exist upstream.