An Unsettled Liberal Democratic Order and Indigenous Peoples' Legal Rights

Abstract

The chapter examines how recent backlashes against the “liberal component” in liberal democracy might affect what is explained as a relatively recent but also relatively robust international indigenous rights regime. It points to that although counter-reactions against liberal democracy have not been provoked by indigenous rights, their full proportions and spread are unknown. Should the backlash unsettle the liberal democratic order in more profound ways, respect for and implementation of Indigenous peoples’ attained rights could therefore be in jeopardy nonetheless. For the purposes of predicting what might be the implications for Indigenous peoples and their rights of an unsettled liberal democratic order, the chapter discusses the root causes of the outlined recoil. The chapter concludes by offering the question whether, albeit multiculturalism has surely contributed to placing the international indigenous corpus juris on the trajectory which has taken Indigenous peoples from legal non-recognition to status as peoples, further travels might be better promoted by different arguments.