Introducing the Negev–Bedouin land issue from the international indigenous land rights perspective, this comparative study suggests options for the recognition of their land. The book demonstrates that the Bedouin land dispossession, like many indigenous peoples’, progressed through several phases that included eviction and displacement, legislation, and judicial decisions that support acts of dispossession and deny the Bedouin’s traditional land rights. Examining the Mawat legal doctrine on which the State and the Court rely on to deny Bedouin land rights, this volume introduces the relevant international law protecting indigenous land rights and shows how the limitations of this law prevent any meaningful protection of Bedouin land rights. In the second part of the work, the Aborigines’ land in Australia is introduced as an example of indigenous peoples' successful struggle for their traditional land rights. The final chapter analyzes the basic elements of judicial recognition of the land and shows that the basic elements needed for Bedouin land recognition exist in the Israeli legal system. Proposing practical recommendations for the recognition of Bedouin land, this volume is a key resource to scholars and students interested in land rights, international law, comparative studies, and the Middle East.

This book addresses the right of indigenous peoples to live, own and use their traditional territories, and analyses how international law addresses this. Through its meticulous examination of the interaction between international law and indigenous peoples’ land rights, the work explores several burning issues such as collective rights, self-determination, property rights, cultural rights and restitution of land. It delves into the notion of past violations and the role of international law in providing for remedies, reparation and restitution. It also argues that there is a new phase in the relationship between States, indigenous peoples and private actors, such as corporations, in the making of territorial agreements. The first edition of this ground-breaking book was published in 2006, at the time the negotiations for the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) were still underway. The adoption of the Declaration in 2007 marks an important moment not only in terms of law-making, but also represents the achievement of long decades of lobbying and advocacy from indigenous peoples’ representatives. This fully revised new edition reflects on the 10 years which have followed the adoption of the UNDRIP and examines its impact regarding indigenous peoples’ land rights. Its aim is not only to assess the importance of the UNDRIP in terms of international standards, but also to reflect on the ‘maturing’ of international law in relation to indigenous peoples’ land rights. Over the last 10 years these have reached a new level of visibility and a voluminous new jurisprudence and doctrine have been developed. Praise for the first edition: "Gilbert’s passion for his subject is palpable and illuminates every page, as do his zeal to expose international law’s complicity in indigenous peoples’ loss of their territories and tentative hope that international law might now provide some protection of indigenous peoples’ lands. The choice of topic is also to be applauded. There are few texts that examine indigenous peoples’ land rights in such depth.” Claire Charters, Associate Professor, University of Auckland, New Zealand (in International and Comparative Law Quarterly (ICLQ) "Gilbert’s gaze is firmly fixed on the future and the question how international law will reflect lex ferenda on indigenous land rights. His interpretation of international law must be seen in this light. He is looking beyond the current controversies in the rights discourse towards a more conciliatory phase in state-indigenous relations. International law undoubtedly has an important role to play in his vision, but its primary function is to facilitate dialogue rather than as a combative and adversarial mechanism. (..) Gilbert’s book is a tour de force on indigenous territoriality.” Stephen Allen, Senior Lecturer in Law, Queen Mary University London, United Kingdom (in International Journal on Minority and Group Rights

The Bedouin experience is common among many indigenous peoples around the world. Often national law denies indigenous rights and their claims for traditional land, and courts enforce this denial. At the same time, international law fails to provide meaningful assistance. Relying mainly on relentless perseverance, several indigenous groups have ultimately achieved recognition of their rights utilizing both national and international elements of law. In several occurrences, such as the Aborigines of Australia, indigenous peoples succeeded in establishing a connection between their customary law and state law which enabled courts to recognize their traditional land rights.

Rights to their traditional lands and resources are essential to the survival of indigenous peoples. This book analyzes the substance and procedure of the most advanced system of safeguarding these rights, developed in the Inter-American system of human rights protection.

This study concludes with an examination of legal reforms in the post-colonial period. It argues that while there have been some positive developments, notably in the recognition of indigenous land ownership rights, similar sensitivity has not been evinced towards other rights short of title. In certain instances, legislative changes may even be unconstitutional, given the entrenchment of key indigenous rights in the reformed Constitution.

The impact of neoliberal governance on indigenous peoples in liberal settler states may be both enabling and constraining. This book is distinctive in drawing comparisons between three such states—Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In a series of empirically grounded, interpretive micro-studies, it draws out a shared policy coherence, but also exposes idiosyncrasies in the operational dynamics of neoliberal governance both within each state and between them. Read together as a collection, these studies broaden the debate about and the analysis of contemporary government policy. The individual studies reveal the forms of actually existing neoliberalism that are variegated by historical, geographical and legal contexts and complex state arrangements. At the same time, they present examples of a more nuanced agential, bottom-up indigenous governmentality. Focusing on intense and complex matters of social policy rather than on resource development and land rights, they demonstrate how indigenous actors engage in trying to govern various fields of activity by acting on the conduct and contexts of everyday neoliberal life, and also on the conduct of state and corporate actors.