December 08, 2016
Tikanga missing from treaty settlements
Treaty settlements could represent a new form of colonisation by ignoring Maori tikanga and legal traditions, according to a new book by someone who has been immersed in the process
Victoria University law lecturer Dr Carwyn Jones says New Treaty New Traditions draws on his experience working for the Waitangi Tribunal, the Officie of Treaty Settlements and for his own Wairoa-baed iwi.
He says the process has been shaped by Western legal thought so that Maori communities have to prescribe membership rights, resolve disputes, elect leaders and establish governance bodies in ways Western law can recognise.
"The concern I think in the treaty settlement process is that you have a process where the parameters have already been set by the crown. That it isn't really engaging with Maori lore in any really substantive way, it's really setting a process completely within the crown framework of what they want to do," he says.
Dr Jones says more attention needs to be paid to the objectives of self-determination and reconciliation so that settlements become a new beginning to the Treaty relationship.
New Treaty, New Tradition, is published by Victoria University Press and the University of British Columbia Press, with the support of Nga Pae o te Maramatanga.
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