Anaïs Mattez on Indigenous Advocacy and the Compliance Mechanisms of the World Heritage Convention: a TWAIL Reading (International Journal of Cultural Property)

"Indigenous Advocacy and the Compliance Mechanisms of the World Heritage Convention: a TWAIL Reading"
Anaïs Mattez (PhD 2025)
International Journal of Cultural Property, First View, pp. 1 - 18
Published online: December 2024

Abstract: This article examines how Indigenous Peoples who depend on World Heritage sites for their culture and livelihood can appeal to the Committee when State Parties fail to comply with their obligations. While scholars criticize the World Heritage Convention for the lack of participation of Indigenous Peoples, particularly in the inscription and management processes, the framework of the Convention also allows representation and visibility. Indeed, compliance mechanisms offer opportunities for Indigenous advocates to negotiate Land sovereignty and environmental protection. TWAIL, which places the worldview of Indigenous Peoples at the center of legal practice, is crucial to understanding the interactions between Indigenous Peoples and the 1972 UNESCO Convention. TWAILers highlight how international law historically denies sovereignty rights to Indigenous Peoples. Article 6(1) echoes this absence of sovereignty. This article examines three cases in which Indigenous advocates petition to protect Native Lands against environmental degradations and colonization: Kakadu, Wood Buffalo, and Uluru. Ultimately, the challenges of Indigenous activists in their quest to preserve nature and culture reveal that the absence of sovereignty prerogatives remains a substantial issue. While the Convention provides a venue for advocacy and international awareness, Indigenous Peoples still must negotiate Land autonomy and cultural sovereignty with the State.

Alex Green & Jennifer Hendry on Non-Positivist Legal Pluralism and Crises of Legitimacy in Settler-States (forthcoming journal article)

"Non-Positivist Legal Pluralism and Crises of Legitimacy in Settler-States"
Alexander Green and Jennifer Hendry
Journal of Comparative Law, forthcoming

Abstract: In this article we develop an original, non-positivist conception of legal pluralism, which we then deploy to identify and evaluate a particular type of legitimacy crisis. Such crises occur when settler-states attempt unilaterally to resolve conflicts between their own legal orders and indigenous legal orders, and thus treat the relevant indigenous communities unjustly. By identifying each legal order in terms of its morally valuable instantiation of the rule of law, we emphasise their equal normative status; the legitimacy crises we identify are typified by failures to acknowledge and respect this equality on the part of settler-states. Using case studies drawn from the United States of America and Australia, this article not only advances the first non-positivist theory of legal pluralism, but also demonstrates the utility of non-positivism as an analytical tool within socio-legal jurisprudence.  Click here to download the paper from SSRN.

New Issue: SSRN Legal Studies Research Paper Series

Vol. 5, No. 1: 19 Jan 2015

Table of Contents 

1.  "Constitutions, Constitutional Practice and Constitutionalism in East Asia"
Albert H. Y. Chen, The University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law

2.  "Introduction of Competition and Environmental Regulation in the Electricity Sector in Hong Kong"
Thomas K. Cheng, The University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law
Jolene Lin, University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law

3.  "Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement and Beijing's Failure to Honor the Basic Law"
Michael C. Davis, The University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law

4.  "China & the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Tibetan Case"
Michael C. Davis, The University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law