A comparative view of indigenous citizenship issues

Following the Wik decision it is being suggested that Australia ought now to revisit the translation of special legal norms formulated in international law with respect to the human rights of indigenous citizens. These have previously underpinned developments in both Australia and Scandinavia with respect to indigenous people. Recent Australian developments, particularly the struggle over indigenous property rights, exemplify the argument of O'Neill (1997) in the first volume of Citizenship Studies, which points to the absorption of civic autonomy by market sovereignty. O'Neill is correct to suggest that the dominance of market sovereignty reduces the political participation of those incapable of the competitive struggle for private affluence and that this has a squalid dimension. Central to this is the denial of the notion of community and dominance of the market. This dominance has obscured the significance of the Australian High Court's recognition of aboriginal land rights in Mabo. The decision put the incorrect application of terra nullius—or no man's land—to Australia to rights. It made it possible for the nation to contemplate indigenous sovereignty consequent upon the recognition of native title property rights. Australia's translation of those rights with the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) looked to international law for its rationale. The rights of the Sami people have been developed in Scandinavia largely with reference to the evolution of international law on indigenous peoples. As we approach 2000, Australia cannot continue to ignore the special legal norms in international law relating to citizenship of indigenous peoples. International law informs attempts by indigenous people in modern times to regain some of what they lost in the past.     

Public Sector Priority Setting Using Decision Support Tools

The public sector is in transition in many countries, including New Zealand, and many government departments have been restructured so as to increase transparency and accountability in their decision‐making by implementing fundamental changes to governance, accountability regimes and information systems. New frameworks are also needed for tasks such as priority setting, and this paper describes the framework developed to assist the then NZ Ministry of Agriculture (MAF) in setting priorities for the allocation of research funds. This comprised a participative process including a series of workshops using both GroupSystems software for electronic meeting support and Visual Interactive Sensitivity Analysis (VISA) software to facilitate a multi‐criteria decision analysis.     

Cities working together to improve urban services in developing areas: The Toronto-São Paulo example

This paper examines the structure and administrative impact of a cooperative urban development accord existing between the cities of Toronto, Canada and São Paulo, Brazil. Using a case study approach, the extent to which urban service delivery in São Paulo has been facilitated by this agreement—focusing on the critical area of emergency care provision—is examined. The paper suggests that as a form of development assistance, the type of international municipal cooperation demonstrated in the study may have considerable potential, insofar at least as possibilities for real improvement to established service delivery mechanisms in developing areas are evident.     

Immigration and its Imperatives

Conflict and compromise have marked domestic immigration and asylum law in many countries. In examining whether these patterns will be replicated at the level of the EU, this article proposes an alternative method for analysing immigration law and its politics, framing them within the complex interaction of the interpretations by key actors of the imperatives of the State, the EU, and the legal sphere. An account of the functional, normative and polity legitimating imperatives, their specific manifestations in different spheres, and their interaction in the field of immigration and asylum is sketched. This politically-grounded analysis explains more clearly the structure of conflict and compromise that characterises this sphere, illuminates the judicial strategies in this field and enables us to speculate upon the probable future of EU immigration and asylum law.