| Summary: | The aim of this thesis is to reveal the need for a principled framework that would establish an effective implementation of the aboriginal peoples' right to self-government in Canada. In recent decades, many agreements instituting the right to self-government of First Nations have been concluded between the federal and provincial governments and aboriginal peoples. It then becomes important to evaluate the attempts of the two existing orders of government and the courts of Canada as regards the right to self-government and assess the potential usefulness of the two's efforts at defining and implementing the right. Firstly, the importance and legitimacy of the right to self-government is recognized through its beginnings in the human right norm of self-determination in international law to the establishment of the right in Canadian domestic law. Secondly, an evaluation of the principal attempts, on behalf of the governments and the courts, to give meaning and scope to the aboriginal right to self-government, which culminate in the conclusion of modern agreements, reveals their many inefficiencies and the need for a workable and concrete alternative. Lastly, the main lacunae of the negotiation process, the main process by which the right is concluded and implemented, and the use of the courts to determine the scope and protection of the right to self-government, are revealed. An analysis of European initiatives to entrench the right to self-government, mainly the European Charter of Self-Government and its established set of principles that guide the creation of self-government agreements, are also used in order to propose a viable option for the establishment of a principled framework for the aboriginal right to self-government in Canada.
|
|---|