Compromised jurisprudence: Native title cases since Mabo (Second edition)

Summary

Compromised Jurisprudence has established itself as a well-priced and accessible introduction to the subject.

Native title has dramatically altered the law and public policy in Australia. It has had a fundamental impact on social relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and the courts have played a central role in its development, and continue to do so. 

This revised edition is the most up-to-date book on the subject. It includes new chapters on the recent High Court cases, including the most controversial Federal Court case of the last two years, Bennell, the south-west Western Australia/Perth claim.

The final two chapters now include a discussion of these decisions and all the Federal Court appeals since the last edition. The annotated case list has also been updated.

Dr Lisa Strelein is the Director and Research Fellow of the Native Title Research Unit at AIATSIS, the leading research and resource centre for native title research in Australia. Her writing has been taken up in Indigenous studies, property and environmental law studies. 
As with Strelein’s other writing, this focuses on the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the state, and the role of the courts in defining indigenous peoples’ rights.

Reviews and endorsements

This second edition of Lisa Strelein’s Compromised Jurisprudence skilfully reveals both the promises, perils and pitfalls of litigating Indigenous peoples’ property and other fundamental human rights under the domestic law of a Western settler-state like Australia. The work of a gifted legal scholar and writer, the book contains many valuable lessons and insights that Indigenous rights advocates around the world will be able to utilise in their own legal efforts aimed at decolonisation of Indigenous peoples under both domestic and international law. 

— Robert A. Williams, Jr., E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law and American Indian Studies, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law

A significant deficiency in native title practice in Australia has been a failure by some of the participants to come to grips with the conceptual underpinnings of native title jurisprudence. Compromised Jurisprudence, by confronting, analysing and challenging those underpinnings, is an important work that can assist in overcoming that deficiency.

— Ron Merkel, Federal Court of Australia [Commenting on the first edition]