The current framework for reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state is based on the Supreme Court of Canada's acceptance of the Crown's assertion of sovereignty, legislative power, and underlying title. The basis of this assertion is a long-standing interpretation of Section 91(24) of Canada's Constitution, which reads it as a plenary grant of power over Indigenous communities and their lands, leading the courts to simply bypass the question of the inherent right of self-government. In A Reconciliation without Recollection?, Joshua Ben David Nichols argues that if we are to find a meaningful path toward reconciliation, we will need to address the history of sovereignty without assuming its foundations. Exposing the limitations of the current model, Nichols carefully examines the lines of descent and association that underlie the legal conceptualization of the Aboriginal right to govern. Blending legal analysis with insights drawn from political theory and philosophy, A Reconciliation without Recollection? is an ambitious and timely intervention into one of the most pressing concerns in Canada.

Indigenous peoples in Canada are striving for greater economic prosperity and political self-determination. Investigating specific legal, economic, and political practices, and including research from interviews with Indigenous political and business leaders, this collection seeks to provide insights grounded in lived experience. Covering such critical topics as economic justice and self-determination, and the barriers faced in pursuing each, Wise Practices sets out to understand the issues not in terms of sweeping empirical findings but through particular experiences of individuals and communities. The choice to focus on specific practices of law and governance is a conscious rejection of idealized theorizing about law and governance and represents an important step beyond the existing scholarship. This volume offers readers a broad scope of perspectives, incorporating contemporary thought on Indigenous law and legal orders, the impact of state law on Indigenous peoples, theories and practices of economic development, and grounded practices of governances. While the authors address a range of topics, each does so in a way that sheds light on how Indigenous practices of law and governance support the social and economic development of Indigenous peoples.

This book stems from an examination of how Western philosophy has accounted for the foundations of law. In this tradition, the character of the "sovereign" or "lawgiver" has provided the solution to this problem. But how does the sovereign acquire the right to found law? As soon as we ask this question we are immediately confronted with a convoluted combination of jurisprudence and theology.

The author begins by tracing a lengthy and deeply nuanced exchange between Derrida and Nancy on the question of community and fraternity and then moves on to engage with a diverse set of texts from the Marquis de Sade, Saint Augustine, Kant, Hegel, and Kafka. These texts--which range from the canonical to the apocryphal--all struggle in their own manner with the question of the foundations of law. Each offers a path to the law. If a reader accepts any path as it is and follows without question, the law is set and determined and the possibility of dialogue is closed. The aim of this book is to approach the foundations of law from a series of different angles so that we can begin to see that those foundations are always in question and open to the possibility of dialogue.