Aboriginal Flag Torres Strait Islander Flag
(Image sources: Australian Government, Department of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and AIATSIS)
Australian Indigenous Law The First Peoples of Australia are the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples. According to the 2016 census, Indigenous Australians comprise 2.8 % of Australia's population of nearly 25 million (about 650,000 people). 91% are of Aboriginal origin, 5% are of Torres Strait Islander origin, and 4% are of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin. There are hundreds of Indigenous societies, communities and groups. 'Community' is often used to describe groups identifying by kinship, language or belonging to a particular place, 'country' or 'nation'. There is great diversity among different Indigenous communities and societies in Australia; each has its own culture, customs and languages. There are over 150 Australian Indigenous languages still in existence today.
Australian Indigenous law includes customary law, Australian government law that specifically and only affects Indigenous Australians, and also the relationship between Indigenous people / customary law and the general common and statute law of Australia.
Indigenous legal judgments by
This book is a collection of key legal decisions affecting Indigenous Australians, which have been re-imagined so as to be inclusive of Indigenous people's stories, historical experience, perspectives and worldviews. In this groundbreaking work, Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars have collaborated to rewrite 16 key decisions. Spanning from 1889 to 2017, the judgments reflect the trajectory of Indigenous people's engagements with Australian law. The collection includes decisions that laid the foundation for the wrongful application of terra nullius and the long disavowal of native title. Contributors have also challenged narrow judicial interpretations of native title, which have denied recognition to Indigenous people who suffered the prolonged impacts of dispossession. Exciting new voices have reclaimed Australian law to deliver justice to the Stolen Generations and to families who have experienced institutional and police racism. Contributors have shown how judicial officers can use their power to challenge systemic racism and tell the stories of Indigenous people who have been dehumanised by the criminal justice system. The new judgments are characterised by intersectional perspectives which draw on postcolonial, critical race and whiteness theories. Several scholars have chosen to operate within the parameters of legal doctrine. Some have imagined new truth-telling forums, highlighting the strength and creative resistance of Indigenous people to oppression and exclusion. Others have rejected the possibility that the legal system, which has been integral to settler-colonialism, can ever deliver meaningful justice to Indigenous people.
The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History by