Legal traditions respond to social and economic environments. Māori author and legal scholar Carwyn Jones provides a timely examination of how the resolution of land claims in New Zealand has affected Māori law and the challenges faced by Indigenous peoples as they attempt to exercise self-determination in a postcolonial world. Combining thoughtful analysis with Māori storytelling, Jones’s nuanced reflections on the claims process show how Western legal thought has shaped treaty negotiations. Drawing on Canadian and international examples, Jones makes the case that genuine reconciliation can occur only when we recognize the importance of Indigenous traditions in the settlement process.

Carwyn Jones' profile page

• Winner, Early Career Research Excellence Award for the Humanities, Royal Society of New Zealand
• Winner, <P>Non-fiction politics award, Ngā Kupu Ora Awards</P>
• Winner, <P>Book prize, Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand</P>

Carwyn Jones is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Victoria University of Wellington and a New Zealand Maori of Ngati Kahungunu descent. His primary research interests relate to the Treaty of Waitangi and Indigenous legal traditions. He has worked at the Waitangi Tribunal, the Maori Land Court, and the Office of Treaty Settlements and is the co-editor of the Maori Law Review. He also maintains Ahi-ka-roa, a blog on legal issues affecting Maori and other Indigenous peoples. He is a member of the Maori Advisory Committee to the New Zealand Law Commission and in 2012 was a United Nations Indigenous Fellow. In 2014, he was awarded the Marsden Fast-Start Grant by the Royal Society of New Zealand for his scholarship on Maori legal traditions.

… this is one of the most important books written about Maori law and the Treaty this century.

Sunday Star Times

New Treaty, New Tradition is beautifully written, and its engaging style renders complex Maori legal concepts accessible to Canadian scholars, students, and the general public. Readers will come away not only with an understanding of Maori legal traditions but also with an appreciation of the principles informing Indigenous thinking in many jurisdictions, including British Columbia.

BC Studies