Indigenous Declaration

[William J Poser]

I think that one consideration here in Canada has been the idea that
the Declaration recognizes indigenous rights in such broad terms
(e.g. in recognizing rights to all of their traditional territory)
that it might be interpreted as over-riding existing treaties,
which would be very disruptive. I don't know if this has come up
in New Zealand, but I can imagine the government of New Zealand
having the same concern. New Zealand may well feel: "We settled
everything fair and square with the Treaty of Waitangi. We're not
going to undo all of that and go back to square one."