At the Court of the Strange God

This article revisits the decision of the Australian High Court in Mabo (No. 2)for the purpose of determining what, in the legal thought displayed in the judgments, makes the category of sovereignty exclusive of the sovereignty of aboriginal peoples. Having regard to the téchnē of legal thought, it locates this exclusion in the substitution of nation for property relations of class, sex and race and, more specifically to sovereignty as a category of a still colonial law, in denial of the partiality of the standpoint of legal thought. This article proposes the need in Australia to attend to, thoughtfully, a fantastic and reconciliatory moment in the idea of sovereignty. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.