When Canadian law treats corporations like people, it’s easy to believe natural features like rivers or mountains deserve similar rights, says a UVic legal scholar. (Victoria Times-Colonist)
John Borrows, the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at UVic Law, talked about Crown recognition of Maori law ascribing legal personality to a river in New Zealand at “The role of the sacred in Indigenous law and reconciliation”. He said the topic arose in part in response to the November 2017 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Ktunaxa Nation v. British Columbia.
The talk by Borrows and by Val Napoleon, Law Foundation Professor of Aboriginal Justice and Governance at UVic Law, took place March 8 as part of Ideafest at UVic.
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