This book concludes by reiterating the importance of avoiding grand narratives in research on sustainable development in international law. While each chapter revolves around its unique theme, my adoption of TWAIL helped unite these separate parts to tell a single story on Africa’s intersection with sustainable development’s legal evolution, conceptualisation, and implementation. Even so, this book is more than just writing about sustainable development or Africa as it deeply explores how international law should evolve, going forward. Finally, I end this book by drawing on TWAIL’s hopeful agenda by foreshadowing my future research interests in re-reading the law and politics of ecological crises as everyday occurrences and not as episodic events in international law.

Indigenous peoples in Canada score far worse on indicators of well-being than the general public due to historical and ongoing processes of colonisation. It is also well recognised that Indigenous peoples are the most impacted and vulnerable populations affected by climate change. Currently proposed climate change ‘solutions’ are derived from the same Western colonial mindset which caused the crisis in the first place, so it is logical that we look for alternative approaches. Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) have allowed Indigenous peoples to survive centuries of environmental degradation brought about by European colonisation, as well as thrive for millennia. International declarations have specifically recognised the potential of IKS to help alleviate climate and other environmental crises. Indigenous peoples must therefore be enabled to undergo decolonisation processes, so that we may all benefit from the revitalisation of Indigenous ways of relating to the Earth in mutually beneficial ways.

Chapter 10 argues the practices and discourses of reconciliation have tended to operate as a form of inappropriate and premature settlement or closure of the grievances of victim-survivors and their descendants. To encourage victim-survivors and a society to pursue reconciliation in the absence of addressing other elements of transitional justice may operate as a reaffirmation of the power structures of states and churches. While the experience of Canada and Australia contains an explicit reconciliation discourse and practice, in the absence of significant change in and imagination regarding power relationships in those societies, they join the United States, Ireland, and the United Kingdom in remaining deeply unreconciled societies. In addition, the reconciliation practice of the Catholic church regarding historical abuse demonstrates its inability to effectively self-critique in its processes of reconciliation.

Since the 1970s, Indigenous activists have fought for the recognition of Indigenous rights both nationally and internationally, a fight that arguably culminated in the passage of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People in 2007. Despite this victory, however, state actors continue to violate Indigenous rights, a violation that this chapter argues stems from the disaggregation of Indigenous rights from Indigenous law. In other words, Indigenous peoples residing within the borders of settler-colonial nation states, including the United States and Canada, are recognised as rights-bearing individuals and collectives, but these states still refuse to recognise the existence of independent, extra-colonial Indigenous legal systems. This phenomenon is a particular concern of contemporary Indigenous writers, including Michi Saagig Anishinaabe writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, whose poem “jiibay or aandizooke” demonstrates how settler legal systems that operate without regard for Indigenous law suppress the latter. Simpson’s work demonstrates why Indigenous rights and law must be recognised together.

This chapter examines how internal self-determination applies to minority groups (i.e. ethnic minority groups and indigenous peoples). It argues that minority groups can be considered as having a right to internal self-determination. However, internal self-determination is a concept that has mixed potential for minorities. It is a principle which does not guarantee a right to autonomy, and its realization always has to be within a state. Internal self-determination, therefore, is a concept which, wittingly or unwittingly, respects the underlying framework of the state. This can limit the options of minority groups' freedom and autonomy too. As for indigenous peoples, the 2007 UNDRIP recognizes a clear right to internal self-determination. However, indigenous peoples continue to face challenges in getting the right applied to them around the world. And the UNDRIP may not be a hopeful precedent for ethnic minorities.

States, international organizations and private businesses have distinct but complementary duties concerning human rights. States are obligated to respect, protect and fulfill human rights within their jurisdiction. International organizations are obligated to ensure that their activities, suc as financing infrastructure or peacekeeping in conflict zones, conform with (and in some cases protect) human rights. Business actors may not have the same responsibility as states or international organizations. For decades we have seen an increase in the number and in the development of frameworks that encourage economic globalization. We have also observed a similar path in the expansion of the international law frameworks that protect human rights, including indigenous human rights. Despite the growth of the two fields, both have developed separately, almost independently, although the two are fundamental to international law and a reflection of the world, especially after World War II (WWII). Frameworks regulating economic globalization have invariably lacked mechanisms of accountability on human rights.

“This chapter traces the transformation of the Kurdish issue into a transnational indigenous one. It argues that we rethink and shift our analyst categories in tandem with this transformation. By considering the impact of diaspora, Rojava and indigeneity, the chapter argues that the Kurdish issue should no longer simply be conceived as ‘minority rights within a state/regional system’ but one which centres on the issue of Kurdish transnational indigeneity. It argues that Kurdish roots will continue to be articulated through transnational routes. The chapter considers the significance of Kurdish transnational indigeneity for understanding indigeneity and transnationality, as well as the various possible consequences of the Kurdish issue being increasingly framed and understood as a transnational indigenous one. It calls for a linguistic and conceptual shift towards transnational indigeneity in the field of Kurdish studies.”

These remedies involve the challenges of responding to the harms of colonialism and avoiding new neo-colonial harms. Part I stresses the importance of interim remedies to prevent irreparable harm to Indigenous rights. Courts should stop their tendency to discount pecuniary losses even while trying to off-set this with a more generous approach to non-pecuniary harms. Part II examines the duty to consult. It, like the South African practice of engagement, can result in consensual agreements but also authorize limits on rights, especially if no attempt is made to address inequality of bargaining power and respect Indigenous law. Part III argues that proportionality principles can be used to avoid allowing majoritarian and economic interests to weaken remedies. Following Article 40 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the overall balance stage should be applied bi-jurally to respect both rights and Indigenous law including with respect to the environment. Part IV suggests that domestic and supra-national courts should focus on providing first-track remedies to prevent irreparable harm and compensate for past harm. They should employ a lighter and respectful touch that encourages bi-jural treaties as systemic remedies. Effective first-track remedies may make such agreements more likely.

Captain Cook claimed possession for the British Crown of what he called ‘New South Wales’ at Possession Island, Cape York (now Queensland) on 22 August 1770. British colonisation of Aboriginal lands, then a part of the European colonisation of the continent, began in January 1788.