Aboriginal Child Welfare, Self-Government and the Rights of Indigenous Children: Protecting the Vulnerable Under International Law

This volume addresses the contentious and topical issue of aboriginal self-government over child welfare. It focuses on Canada and Australia to examine the fundamental changes in the design, management and delivery of child welfare and protection services within aboriginal communities. The role of international law as a potentially more sensitive solution is also explored. It is argued that the effective implementation of such changes requires a journey well beyond the single issue of child welfare to the heart of the debate over self-government, self-determination and sovereignty in both national and international law.Part One of the text sets out 'the problem' of aboriginal child welfare in both historical and contemporary perspectives. Current attempts to address the failings of the non-aboriginal child welfare systems in Canada and Australia by sensitising existing law and practice to aboriginal cultural perspectives are examined, as well as the potential benefits and risks posed by the more far-reaching solution of aboriginal self-government. Part Two examines the approach taken to aboriginal self-government in Canadian law and politics, focusing in particular on the non-negotiable guarantees of individual rights imposed by the federal government on aboriginal communities seeking to secure self-government over child welfare through the modern treaty process. Part Three examines whether international law can provide more nuanced and culturally sensitive solutions to the need to reconcile the right of indigenous peoples to self-government with the rights of individual indigenous children. Particular attention is paid to the normative standards on self-determination, self-government and individual rights set down in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as the long-standing protection of aboriginal children's rights contained within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.