Indigenous Water Rights in Law and Regulation: Lessons from Comparative Experience

ISBN-13: 9781108460934 / Angielski / Miękka / 2021 / 311 str.

Christc Elizabeth Jane Macpherson (University of Canterbury

Opis

Indigenous Water Rights in Law and Regulation responds to an unresolved question in legal scholarship: how are (or how might be) indigenous peoples' rights included in contemporary regulatory regimes for water. This book considers that question in the context of two key trajectories of comparative water law and policy. First, the tendency to 'commoditise' the natural environment and use private property rights and market mechanisms in water regulation. Second, the tendency of domestic and international courts and legislatures to devise new legal mechanisms for the management and governance of water resources, in particular 'legal person' models. This book adopts a comparative research method to explore opportunities for accommodating indigenous peoples' rights in contemporary water regulation, with country studies in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, Chile and Colombia, providing much needed attention to the role of rights and regulation in determining indigenous access to, and involvement with, water in comparative law.

Recenzje

'[…] a highly relevant book, contributing to the debates about rights of nature in general, and legal personhood for rivers more specifically. The case studies […] are well chosen. Macpherson's use and comparison of case studies of countries where water rights have been historically denied to indigenous groups show the need for approaches that move beyond repairing historical injustices by narrowly defined 'traditional' water uses in a generally constraining context. Ongoing injustices can only be effectively tackled by creating indigenous jurisdictions for water governance and effecting a substantive (re-)distribution of water for multiple purposes, including socio-economic development.' Dik Roth, The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law

Spis treści

1. Introduction; 2. Justifying indigenous water rights; 3. Regulating indigenous water rights; 4. The limited recognition of indigenous water rights in Australia; 5. Water rights for Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand; 6. Rivers as subjects and indigenous water rights in Colombia; 7. Recognising and allocating indigenous water rights in Chile; 8. Indigenous water rights in comparative law: jurisdiction and distribution; 9. Conclusion.