The debate on indigenous rights has revealed some serious difficulties for current international law, posed mainly by different understandings of important concepts. This book explores the extent to which indigenous claims, as recorded in the United Nations forums, can be accommodated by international law. By doing so, it also highlights how the indigenous debate has stretched the contours and ultimately evolved international human rights standards. The book first reflects on the international law responses to the theoretical arguments on cultural membership. After a comprehensive analysis of...

The present volume, in honour of Professor Patrick Thornberry, presents new thinking on minority and indigenous rights in international law. Contributors to this 17 chapter volume include an impressive range of academics, thinkers, practitioners and international civil servants with a number of different approaches to this complex area. Not all of them take a legal approach, and this exploration benefits from the variety of frameworks utilised in contributing to the controversial area of minority and indigenous rights. Debates that receive attention in this volume include self-determination,...