Law Commons^™

Of Provinces And S.35 Rights, Kerry Wilkins

Dalhousie Law Journal

It is now well established that federal law and regulatory activity may interfere with the exercise of aboriginal peoples' existing treaty and aboriginal rights, despite s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982, whenever the federal government can justify the interference. It is not yet clear, though, what power, if any, Canada's provinces have to regulate, even in justified ways, such rights and their exercise. This article argues that the provinces, as a general rule, have no such authority. Except in certain very specific and isolated circumstances, they have no power, even apart from s. 35, to regulate the exercise of …

The Reinvigoration Of The Doctrine Of Implied Repeals: A Requiem For Indigenous Treaty Rights, David E. Wilkins

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

America's indigenous nations occupy a distinctive political within the United States as separate sovereigns whose rights in the doctrine of inherent tribal sovereignty, affirmed in hundreds of ratified treaties and agreements, acknowledged in the Commerce the U.S. Constitution, and recognized in ample federal legislation case law. Ironically, while indigenous sovereignty is neither ally defined or delimited, it may be restricted or enhanced by One could argue, then, that indeterminacy or inconsistency of the tribal-federal political/legal relationship.

[Introduction To] Tribes, Treaties, And Constitutional Tribulations, Vine Deloria Jr., David E. Wilkins

Bookshelf

"Federal Indian law... is a loosely related collection of past and present acts of Congress, treaties and agreements, executive orders, administrative rulings, and judicial opinions, connected only by the fact that law in some form has been applied haphazardly to American Indians over the course of several centuries.... Indians in their tribal relation and Indian tribes in their relation to the federal government hang suspended in a legal wonderland."

In this book, two prominent scholars of American Indian law and politics undertake a full historical examination of the relationship between Indians and the United States Constitution that explains the present …