This book brings together Indigenous, Third World and Settler perspectives on the theory and practice of decolonizing law. Colonialism, imperialism, and settler colonialism continue to affect the lives of racialized communities and Indigenous Peoples around the world. Law, in its many iterations, has played an active role in the dispossession and disenfranchisement of colonized peoples. Law and its various institutions are the means by which colonial, imperial, and settler colonial programs and policies continue to be reinforced and sustained. There are, however, recent and historical examples in which law has played a significant role in dismantling colonial and imperial structures set up during the process of colonization. This book combines usually distinct Indigenous, Third World and Settler perspectives in order to take up the effort of decolonizing law: both in practice and in the concern to distance and to liberate the foundational theories of legal knowledge and academic engagement from the manifestations of colonialism, imperialism and settler colonialism. Including work by scholars from the Global South and North, this book will be of interest to academics, students and others interested in the legacy of colonial and settler law, and its overcoming.

This book addresses key challenges and conflicts arising in extractive industries (mining, oil drilling) concerning the human rights of workers, their families, local communities and other stakeholders. Further, it analyses various instruments that have sought to mitigate human rights violations by defining transparency-related obligations and participation rights. These include the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), disclosure requirements, and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). The book critically assesses these instruments, demonstrating that, in some cases, they produce unwanted effects. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of resistance to extractive industry projects as a response to human rights violations, and discusses how transparency, participation and resistance are interconnected.

Corporations are among the most powerful institutions of our time, but they are also responsible for a wide range of harmful social and environmental impacts. Consequently, political movements and nongovernmental organizations increasingly contest the risks that corporations pose to people and nature. Mining Capitalism examines the strategies through which corporations manage their relationships with these critics and adversaries. By focusing on the conflict over the Ok Tedi copper and gold mine in Papua New Guinea, Stuart Kirsch tells the story of a slow-moving environmental disaster and the international network of indigenous peoples, advocacy groups, and lawyers that sought to protect local rivers and rain forests. Along the way, he analyzes how corporations promote their interests by manipulating science and invoking the discourses of sustainability and social responsibility. Based on two decades of anthropological research, this book is comparative in scope, showing readers how similar dynamics operate in other industries around the world.

The right of indigenous peoples under international human rights law to give or withhold their Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) to natural resource extraction in their territories is increasingly recognized by intergovernmental organizations, international bodies, and industry actors, as well as in the domestic law of some States. This book offers a comprehensive overview of the historical basis and status of the requirement for indigenous peoples’ consent under international law, examining its relationship with debates and practice pertaining to the acquisition of title to territory throughout the colonial era. Cathal Doyle examines the evolution of the contemporary concept of FPIC and the main challenges and debates associated with its recognition and implementation. Drawing on existing jurisprudence and evolving international standards, policies and practices, Doyle argues that FPIC constitutes an emerging norm of international law, which is derived from indigenous peoples’ self-determination, territorial and cultural rights, and is fundamental to their realization. This rights consistent version of FPIC guarantees that the responses to questions and challenges posed by the extractive industry’s increasingly pervasive reach will be provided by indigenous peoples themselves. The book will be of great interest and value to students and researchers of public international law, and indigenous peoples and human rights.

Indigenous peoples have suffered disproportionately from the effects of extractive industries on their lands and livelihoods, including environmental degradation, human rights violations, and dispossession. Although the abuses have been ongoing, there has been a growing assertion of the rights of indigenous peoples to decide their own development paths, which frequently calls for the rejection of large-scale extractive projects. Based primarily on the proceedings of an International Conference on Extractive Industries and Indigenous Peoples that took place in Manila in March 2009, this book thematically explores the nature of the problem, reviews recent developments and analyses the strategies employed at local, national, and international levels.

Agreements between the mining industry and Indigenous people are not creating sustainable economic futures for Indigenous people, and this demands consideration of alternate forms of economic engagement in order to realise such futures. Within the context of three mining agreements in north Australia this study considers Indigenous livelihood aspirations and their intersection with sustainable development agendas. The three agreements are the Yandi Land Use Agreement in the Central Pilbara in Western Australia, the Ranger Uranium Mine Agreement in the Kakadu region of the Northern Territory, and the Gulf Communities Agreement in relation to the Century zinc mine in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland. Recent shifts in Indigenous policy in Australia seek to de-emphasise the cultural behaviour or imperatives of Indigenous people in undertaking economic action, in favour of a mainstream conventional approach to economic development. Concepts of value, identity, and community are key elements in the tension between culture and economics that exists in the Indigenous policy environment. Whilst significant diversity exists within the Indigenous polity, Indigenous aspirations for the future typically emphasise a desire for alternate forms of economic engagement that combine elements of the mainstream economy with the maintenance and enhancement of Indigenous institutions and livelihood activities. Such aspirations reflect ongoing and dynamic responses to modernity, and typically concern the interrelated issues of access to and management of country, the maintenance of Indigenous institutions associated with family and kin, access to resources such as cash and vehicles, the establishment of robust representative organisations, and are integrally linked to the derivation of both symbolic and economic value of livelihood pursuits.