Negotiating Claims: The Emergence of Indigenous Land Claim Negotiation Policies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States

Extract

Negotiating Claims: The Emergence of Indigenous Land Claim Negotiation Policies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, Christa Scholtz, New York and London: Routledge, 2006, pp. viii, 259.

In this well-crafted study, Christa Scholtz sets herself a simple but important question: “Why do [settler-society] governments choose to negotiate [Aborignal] land claims rather than resolve claims through some other means?” (2). Through close analysis of the context and internal dynamics of executive decision making in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States, she provides a convincing answer. And it is a good deal more than simply that landmark high court decisions—the 1973 Calder case in Canada being the archetypical example—forced governments' hands, though she demonstrates that such judicial decisions are crucial catalysts in the decision-making process.