Waitangi and Indigenous Rights - F. M. Brookfield

This is a contribution to the debate surrounding the Treaty of Waitangi. A central theme is how a revolutionary taking of power by one people over another may be partly legitimated. Wrongs done to those who suffered the take-over must then be redressed with due allowance for new rights and interests that have resulted from it.;Part 1 deals with the role of law in actual or threatened revolution, but especially in the revolutionary expansions of Western imperialism. In part 2 the focus is narrowed further: on the British Crown's seizure of power of Aotearoa-New Zealand from 1840, the counter-revolutionary challenges of Maori over the years, the establishment of the separate New Zealand Crown, and the present problems of doing justice to Maori constitutional claims.;Developed extensively from the author's earlier writings on law and revolution and on Waitangi matters and indigenous rights, the book is especially for people who study or work in those fields; but it is intended for the general reader also. It aims to advance and to widen current debate, in part by the criticism it offers of the views of some prominent participants.