Drawing upon the Wealth of Indigenous Laws in the Yukon

Darcy Lindberg

doi:10.22584/nr50.2020.007

Abstract

As there is a collective renaissance in the recognition of Indigenous legal traditions and laws in Canada, this reflection focuses on a “constitutive” approach that non-Indigenous Yukoners can take to law making, in that it explores how the constitutive practices and institutions of Yukon First Nations can be utilized to inform both lawyerly approaches to First Nations law and the interactions of the non-Indigenous Yukon public with Indigenous laws. This reflection explores this in two ways: 1) the necessity to view the constitutive and legal practices of Indigenous communities from a broad, normative lens; and 2) how a normative approach provides different fruitful approaches to accessing, understanding, and drawing upon Indigenous laws.

Highlights

As there is a collective renaissance[1] in the recognition of Indigenous legal traditions and laws in Canada, this reflection focuses on a “constitutive” approach that non-Indigenous Yukoners can take to law making, in that it explores how the constitutive practices and institutions of Yukon First Nations can be utilized to inform both lawyerly approaches to First Nations law and the interactions of the non-Indigenous Yukon public with Indigenous laws
When I first travelled to the Yukon in 2013, it was impossible not to be wideeyed as I moved north through broad valleys along the Alaska Highway. It was the vastness of these corridors that had my mind alight, but my legal curiosity as well, as I knew that these valleys held law—were storied with it—as the land and waters held the legal traditions of the Indigenous nations whose territories I was travelling over
The jurisdictional spaces negotiated through the Final Agreements and Self-Government Agreements (SGAs) in the Yukon have provided the particular challenge of immediacy to hold up Indigenous laws and legal traditions

Summary

Introduction

As there is a collective renaissance[1] in the recognition of Indigenous legal traditions and laws in Canada, this reflection focuses on a “constitutive” approach that non-Indigenous Yukoners can take to law making, in that it explores how the constitutive practices and institutions of Yukon First Nations can be utilized to inform both lawyerly approaches to First Nations law and the interactions of the non-Indigenous Yukon public with Indigenous laws. This reflection introduces Indigenous constitutional and legal theories that broaden our conceptions of law and constitutionalism, and examines how these can inform approaches to Indigenous legal traditions.

Results

Conclusion