Canada's Conduct of Lawful Relations: The Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group's Jurisdictional Entanglements in Non-Aboriginal Law

The Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group are fighting for legal recognition of their property rights with respect to their unceded lands located in British Columbia, Canada. In examining the available literature surrounding the British Columbia Treaty Commission, it is clear that the domestic processes for negotiation have been structured in such a way so that Aboriginal narratives and laws have been foreclosed upon by the legal architecture and language that underwrites the negotiations between Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal governments. The Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group's decision to apply to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights rather than continue with domestic remedies through the courts or treaty-making process represents a chance to compare the two legal spaces. The comparison is made through the use of a praxis of jurisdiction, which is a technique that can explore the ways in which person, places, or events make contact with the body of law. The focus of such a jurisdictional endeavour is to use the magnifying lens of jurisdictional thinking to uncover the landscape of legal practice as it is manifest in the two Commissions. Specifically, jurisdictional thinking is about the quality of lawful relations, bringing in to focus the texture of the relationships between the Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group and Non-Aboriginal governments. The Inter-American Commission generates very different opportunities for the articulation of legal relationships, and as such the jurisdictional perspective uncovers the need for Canada to take seriously its commitment to an ethic of responsibility in its conduct of lawful relations, and a pressing need to reconfigure the mechanics of domestic law to make room for different legal scaffolding.