Do Common Law Traditions Conflict with the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights?
Anthony Knox On September 13, 143 countries voted in favour of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the “Declaration”). Four countries—Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America (the “Four”)—voted against it and 11 countries abstained from voting. On the face of it, the Declaration appears to be the kind of non-binding statement of human rights principles that liberal democracies such as the Four might normally be assumed to support. As each of the Four is a common law country, is there something in this type of legal system that would make voting for the Declaration more difficult for countries of the common law tradition? One might easily be misled into assuming that failure to support the Declaration was either based upon some fundamental concepts of the common law systems of the Four or upon some self-serving motives shared by four nations that inherited (from various European empires) vast lands containing vast resources that were once occup
