35th Annual McDonald Lecture: Naiomi Metallic

We're delighted to host Professor Naiomi Metallic as our 35th annual McDonald lecturer, which is co-sponsored by the Centre for Constitutional Studies and the Indigenous Law Students Association.

The lecture will be preceded by a reception at the David Percy Student Lounge (6pm-7pm), in the University of Alberta's Law Centre. The lecture will then commence at 7pm and will take place in McLennan Ross Hall (2nd floor of the Law Centre).

Lecture Title:

Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Crown Sovereignty and How UNDRIP Provides a Conceptual Off-ramp

Lecture Abstract:

This talk is based on one of my PhD dissertation chapters. My overall project seeks to comprehensively unpack how the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides a framework for the exercise of self-government by Indigenous Peoples within Canada, looking to the instrument’s history, purpose and provisions. Indigenous self-government has been a right that the Supreme Court of Canada has been reticent to recognize and give substance to under s 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. I argue that the UN Declaration is an optimal tool to assist courts in overcoming their fears of recognizing self-government and giving it meaningful content. This chapter seeks to explain how the Declaration provides fresh ways to think about ideas frequently aggregated under the concept of "Crown sovereignty" in Aboriginal law.