If governments of Australia agreed to share power with Aboriginal people, what would the result be? And if Australia was to have a settlement or a treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, what would a treaty deal with and how would a treaty affect the general public? Is there anything beyond a treaty?Treaty and Statehood: Aboriginal Self-determination, by Aboriginal author Michael Mansell, answers these questions and more. Mansell examines the New Zealand model of designated Māori seats and applies the idea to comprise 12 Indigenous Senators in Australia. He argues designated seats and a treaty are constitutionally permissible, and details the possible content for a treaty. He discusses the meaning of self-determination and its limitations, and also thoroughly reviews Aboriginal sovereignty and its function in a modern Australia.The book critically examines the legality of designated seats, treaty, sharing of power and autonomous communities. The legal examination is broken down into easy-to-understand language. Ultimately, Mansell looks at whether justice can best be served to Aboriginal people through a new State of Australia.This new idea of a seventh State - or First State for the First peoples, as the author prefers - is constitutionally legal. Its practicality is also critically examined, including the rights each Aboriginal community or 'nation' would have under statehood.This is a book that answers our query about what reconciliation ultimately means and how it can be achieved."His strongly expressed opinions are always sincere and soundly argued: they may appear at first provocative or over-idealistic, but just wait; in years to come they are likely to be seen as a prescient articulation of a way forward for securing the dignity of our first Australians." - Geoffrey Robertson QC, from the ForewordIn the media...An Indigenous seventh state: a radical idea from a constitutional conservative, Stan Grant, ABC News, 3 Jun 2017 Read article...New book examines 'justice', Jillian Mundy, The Koori Mail, 25 January 2017 Read article...Aboriginal lawyer and activist Michael Mansell has written a new book, Holly Monery, The Examiner, 28 December 2016 Read article...Mansell draws new boundaries for Aboriginal state, Wendy Caccetta, National Indigenous Times, 21 December 2016 Read article...Treaty's benefits, Opinion Letter by Michael Mansell, The Australian, 19 December 2016 Read letter...Indigenous spending to double, warns Michael Mansell, Stephen Fitzpatrick, The Australian, 16 December 2016 Read article...Michael Mansell on Sky News, The Bolt Report with Andrew Bolt, 15 December 2016 Listen to interview...Australia should create seventh state run by Indigenous people, lawyer Michael Mansell says, Dan Conifer, ABC News, 14 December 2016 Read article...

The Oxford ILDC online database, an online collection of domestic court decisions which apply international law, has been providing scholars with insights for many years. This ILDC Casebook is the perfect companion, introducing key court decisions with brief introductory and connecting texts. An ideal text for practitioners, judged, government officials, as well as for students on international law courses, the ILDC Casebook explains the theories and doctrines underlying the use by domestic courts of international law, and illustrates the key importance of domestic courts in the development of international law.

From Kurdistan to Somaliland, Xinjiang to South Yemen, all secessionist movements hope to secure newly independent states of their own. Most will not prevail. The existing scholarly wisdom provides one explanation for success, based on authority and control within the nascent states. With the aid of an expansive new dataset and detailed case studies, this book provides an alternative account. It argues that the strongest members of the international community have a decisive influence over whether today's secessionists become countries tomorrow and that, most often, their support is conditioned on parochial political considerations.

Although most international lawyers assumed that the distribution of the land surface of the earth between States was more or less final after the end of decolonization, recent practice has disproved this assumption. Eritrea separated from Ethiopia and new States were created out of the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia and the former Czechoslovakia. There is no reason to believe that these events form the end of the creation of new States. Numerous communities within existing States claim a right to full separate statehood on the basis of their entitlement to an alleged right to self-determination. However, in most cases, the international community rejected such claims to statehood, even if the territorial entity satisfied the traditional criteria for statehood. On the other hand, in other cases, including some of those mentioned above, the international community acknowledged the statehood of entities which clearly failed to meet these criteria. In the light of the above-mentioned developments, this book examines the modern law of statehood, and in particular the role of the law of self-determination in the process of the formation of States in international law. The study shows that the law of statehood has changed considerably since the establishment of the United Nations. It is argued that the law of self-determination is particularly relevant for explaining the international community's position regarding the general recognition, or the general denial, of statehood of different territorial entities under contemporary international law.

The book comprehensively discusses legal and political issues of non-recognized entities in the context of international and European Law, combining perspectives of international and European law with those of the non-recognized entities themselves.

Statehood in the early 21st century remains as much a central problem now as it was in 1979 when the first edition of The Creation of States in International Law was published. As Rhodesia, Namibia, the South African Homelands and Taiwan then were subjects of acute concern, today governments, international organizations, and other institutions are seized of such matters as the membership of Cyprus in the European Union, application of the Geneva Conventions to Afghanistan, a final settlement for Kosovo, and, still, relations between China and Taiwan. All of these, and many other disputed situations, are inseparable from the nature of statehood and its application in practice. The remarkable increase in the number of States in the 20th century did not abate in the twenty five years following publication of James Crawford's landmark study, which was awarded the American Society of International Law Prize for Creative Scholarship in 1981. The independence of many small territories comprising the 'residue' of the European colonial empires alone accounts for a major increase in States since 1979; while the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the USSR in the early 1990s further augmented the ranks. With these developments, the practice of States and international organizations has developed by substantial measure in respect of self-determination, secession, succession, recognition, de-colonization, and several other fields. Addressing such questions as the unification of Germany, the status of Israel and Palestine, and the continuing pressure from non-State groups to attain statehood, even, in cases like Chechnya or Tibet, against the presumptive rights of existing States, James Crawford discusses the relation between statehood and recognition; the criteria for statehood, especially in view of evolving standards of democracy and human rights; and the application of such criteria in international organizations and between states. Also discussed are the mechanisms by which states have been created, including devolution and secession, international disposition by major powers or international organizations and the institutions established for Mandated, Trust, and Non-Self-Governing Territories. Combining a general argument as to the normative significance of statehood with analysis of numerous specific cases, this fully revised and expanded second edition gives a comprehensive account of the developments which have led to the birth of so many new states.

Democratic and consolidated states are taken as the model for effective rule-making and service provision. In contrast, this book argues that good governance is possible even without a functioning state.