Minority Rights in the Pacific Region A Comparative Legal Analysis

Provides clear comparative parameters enabling precise comparison of legal systems
Adopts a multi-disciplinary approach that seeks to provide a holistic understanding of issues concerning indigenous peoples from a pre and post-colonial perspective
Provides comparative constitutional analysis that examines issues within national context, relying extensively on domestic debates
Detailed case studies provide in-depth knowledge on the specific states under review, drawing on local writers
Provides researchers with a wealth of easily accessible resources through its extensive references of primary and secondary material
Countries in the Pacific face unique challenges of survival and progress in establishing themselves and participating fully in international society. Their geographic isolation from the rest of global society is compounded by complex layers of often competing national and indigenous identities among their populations built through wave upon wave of migration. This has created rich diversity, competing regimes and real challenges in terms of state-building, ethnic identity, social policy cohesion and development in post-colonial settings. The issues studied here would be of interest to scholars from a range of different disciplines such as Law, Politics, Sociology and Anthropology. By examining the theory and practice of minority rights law in states such as Fiji and Papua New Guinea, alongside their more familiar neighbours Australia and New Zealand, this book makes a unique contribution in a region often ignored in the literature.

Readership: International human rights lawyers, domestic lawyers as a source of comparative case law, international organisations, social scientists, NGOs, anthropologists, and sociologists.