Library Guides: Comparative Indigenous Law: Books &amp; Journals

Finding Journal Articles on Maori Law

Journals & Books
For a list of other New Zealand journals to which we subscribe, and which will include articles on Maori law, see the Journals page of our New Zealand Legal Research Guide.

Law Databases

AGIS-ATSIS (UniMelb staff & student access)
This is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Subset of the legal journals database on the INFORMIT platform. It includes indexed articles from 1975 to current, and full-text articles from 1999 to current. Over 120 Australian, New Zealand and Pacific law journals are indexed, as well as selected articles from major law journals from the USA, Canada and the UK. The majority of records contained in the subset deal with legal issues such as land rights, native title, customary law, Indigenous people in the criminal justice system, racial discrimination, Indigenous intellectual property, and reconciliation.
CINCH-ATSIS (UniMelb staff & student access)
This is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Subset of the criminology and criminal justice journals database on the INFORMIT platform. CINCH indexes and abstracts articles on all aspects of crime and criminal justice. CINCH-ATSIS includes information on the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Maori in the justice system.

Multidisciplinary Databases

Indigenous Collection (UniMelb staff & student access)
On the INFORMIT platform. This collection covers many subject areas, including law and land rights. The database includes full-text articles from 1977 to current.

Individual Journal Titles

The Maori Law Review (UniMelb staff & student access)
Includes articles, case notes and recent developments in New Zealand law affecting Maori.
The Yearbook of New Zealand Jurisprudence (open access)
Includes many articles and special issues on Maori and the law. The latest issue is 2010/11.
Journals & Books
For a list of other New Zealand journals to which we subscribe, and which will include articles on Maori law, see the Journals page of our New Zealand Legal Research Guide.

Recent Open Access Articles & Book Chapters on SSRN

First Nations Authors

Charters, Claire, 'Use It or Lose It: The Value of Using the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Maori Political and Legal Claims' in Andrew Eruit, International Indigenous Rights in Aotearoa New Zealand (Victoria University Press, 2017). In this paper I argue that Maori should cite and rely on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in their legal and political claims as this process can lead to the internalisation of these norms even when states reject them. The paper draws heavily on the case study of the use of the Declaration in a Waitangi Tribunal claim relating to Maori self-determination.

Ally Authors

Corbett, Susan, 'Governance Systems for Access to and Use of Indigenous Knowledge and Culture: A New Zealand Perspective' (March 7, 2017). The Nagoya Protocol (‘Protocol’) aims to provide guidance to member Parties on the appropriate legal environment for ‘bioprospecting’ (defined in the Convention on Biological Diversity, to which the Protocol is an extension agreement, as ‘the exploration of biodiversity for commercially valuable genetic and biochemical resources’). As such, the Protocol is an important step forward for indigenous communities, who have long complained of the gaps in most non-indigenous legal systems that deny them legal recourse, including compensation, for the unauthorised access to and use of their traditional knowledge and culture by third parties. For example Western intellectual property laws – upon which many indigenous peoples have focused in their search for appropriate legal standing and governance for their traditional knowledge and culture – do not acknowledge collective ownerships, are founded upon the concept of a public domain, and generally require novelty or originality as a prerequisite for protection. However, although the Protocol diverges from the intellectual property regime; instead mandating a governance system that requires prior informed consent from indigenous communities for access to genetic resources and traditional knowledge and the establishment of measures for fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of those resources, New Zealand has not yet ratified the Protocol. Should the New Zealand government ratify and enact the legal framework required by the Protocol, it will be cognisant of the need to comply with relevant domestic laws, to address the potential impacts on all sectors of the community, and to consider criticisms levelled at other governance systems relevant to Māori. With these complexities in mind, the paper will explain the implications of the 2011 WAI 262 Report, which provides recommendations for the domestic governance of genetic and biological resources as well as traditional knowledge and culture; it will describe and critique the governance system under the Protected Objects Act 1975, and it will explore community submissions to the Proposed National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity.
Iorns Magallanes, Catherine J, 'Access to Environmental Justice for Maori' in 2017 Yearbook of New Zealand Jurisprudence, Special Issue on Access to Justice for Maori 141-181 Access to environmental justice addresses the more typical access to (procedural) access to the decisions by which natural resources are allocated, and justice in the substantive results of those decisions. While environmental justice goals are typically conceptualised as being either procedural or substantive, indigenous Māori claims to and aspirations for environmental justice introduce additional elements that make this binary categorisation too simplistic. This paper suggests that there is a third type of environmental justice that needs to be identified and addressed separately: indigenous environmental justice. Unique to Māori as indigenous people is their cultural connections to Aotearoa New Zealand's natural environment, while also having a history of dispossession and forced alienation from it. One way of conceptualising Māori aspirations for environmental justice is as three types of goals. One goal for Māori environmental justice is political, in that it concerns the distribution of power. This goal is for the active protection of the environmental assets of Aotearoa as well as the recognition of Maori authority to control and/or share in making decisions over them. A second type of environmental justice goal is cultural: for Māori values and culture to be equally respected and protected in environmental law and decision-making, including metaphysical as well as physical features of the natural environment. A third type of goal is the respect of equality of treatment as individuals. This encompasses the more traditional procedural and substantive aspects identified above. This includes access to the legal system in respect of environmental and resource decision-making, and the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens; this distribution is most commonly discussed in relation to bearing of environmental burdens such as pollution and its impact on individual health. This paper introduces some of the different types of environmental justice: procedural, substantive, and indigenous. It then discusses aspects of justice under the New Zealand Resource Management Act 1991 and Environment Court. The second half of the paper illustrates some of these elements and issues with two case studies: Mount Te Aroha and the Tui mine pollution, and the aftermath of the grounding of the MV Rena in the Bay of Plenty. The issues arising from the loss of land and resources after colonisation adds an extra layer of complexity to the discussion of environmental justice. Some issues of environmental justice for indigenous peoples will concern traditional, procedural aspects, such as an individual’s access to the courts for environmental claims, and some will concern traditional substantive elements, such as the distribution of pollution and other environmental burdens. Other environmental justice claims can only be understood in terms of these additional historical, political and cultural elements of justice.