Thompson Rivers University

Schabus on Aboriginal rights at U of C law speaker series

  Posted on: October 21, 2016

On October 13, Assistant Professor Nicole Schabus spoke at the Visiting Speakers in Law Program at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law. This series invites eminent speakers from around the world to contribute to discussions on a broad range of topics.

In her talk “Justifying the Unjustifyable?” Schabus critically analyzed the test for justification of infringements of Aboriginal rights.

This final step in an Aboriginal Title or Rights trial, has not been subject to the same amount of academic analysis as the first step focusing on establishing such rights, although it can take as much time or more in court. She pointed to past and ongoing justification trials and predicted that unless there is a paradigm shift in the relationship with Indigenous Peoples, we can expect more litigation in this field. She also warned against minimizing the test for justification of infringement pointing to complex issues that come into play and have to be proven in court.