A Treatise on Treaties

Canada is today acknowledged to be a constitutional democracy. However, more than the Constitution, treaties are the foundation of our country. After all, without access to land and resources — which treaties provided — there would be nothing for settlers to constitute. On this basis, treaties are worthy of the detailed consideration by the legal profession that the Constitution has received since Confederation. This book pulls together all treaty law — limited as it is — into one place with the goal of encouraging more thoughtful consideration of the law of Crown-Indigenous treaties in Canada. It is designed to be what lawyers call a doctrinal or "black letter" law book. The intention is simply to describe the law as it is, to help judges and lawyers in Canada efficiently solve legal questions having to do with the formation, implementation, and breach of Crown-Indigenous treaties in Canada. The author also touches on the United States’, Australia’s, South Africa’s, and New Zealand’s approaches to treaties and Indigenous law. He has made a conscious effort to keep this book wedded directly to the jurisprudence to make it as practical as possible for both activists and non-activists working in Indigenous law in Canada.