THE EDGE IS HERE
Driving change across Canada and around the world.
UVic law scholars are leading a quiet revolution in Canadian history Working closely with Indigenous communities across the country, researchers at the University of Victoria are helping to re-establish Indigenous legal traditions and give them equal footing with Canadian common law. “Law is the way people make decisions in their communities,” says University of Victoria law scholar John Borrows. “One difference is that Indigenous peoples look to the land to find their principles for judgement, whereas common law looks to old cases to decide how to act in the future.”
Reconciling these different cultures preoccupies Borrows, who is one of Canada’s leading Indigenous law scholars. He’s also the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law and the recent winner of a national 2017 Killam Prize for his commitment to furthering our knowledge of Indigenous legal traditions.
For many, law conjures up images of courts, lawyers and judges and their focus on words. But in visual and oral cultures, the law is often found in the artistic and physical world, says Borrows, who is Anishinaabe/Ojibway and a member of the Chippewa of the Nawash First Nation.
Indigenous law research involves working with Indigenous communities to identify cultural practices such as origin, contact and trickster stories, the potlatch, totems, wampum belts and other artistic works, and then teasing out the legal principles and precedents embedded within them.
The end goal is to create legal institutions that are grounded in communities, are transparent and accountable, and can interact productively with other laws in the country. This effort will benefit areas such as child welfare, education, health care, housing, self-governance, ecological stewardship and resource development.
After 150 years of repression of Indigenous people in Canada, it’s been hard to apply Indigenous law in contemporary circumstances, says Borrows. The revitalization of Indigenous legal traditions is creating pathways out of an era of control, into an era of shared autonomy and responsibility.
“It’s important to do this well because we have to work together; we all live on the same land and share this beautiful country,” says Borrows. “To enjoy a healthy future, we need to be attentive to what the land itself has taught Indigenous peoples for thousands of years.”
Borrows is currently working with law faculty colleague Val Napoleon to develop a joint degree in Indigenous legal orders and Canadian common law ( JID) at UVic. It will be the first degree of its kind in the world.
The degree will train students to understand Indigenous legal orders, build institutions based on those orders, and design institutions and procedures that work in concert with other levels of Canadian law.
More info: bit.ly/uvic-borrows-edge