Legal Pluralism as a Method of Interpretation: A Methodological Approach to Decolonising Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights under International Law

Ever since the arrival of the European colonisers, theories of international law have been used to justify the process of dispossession of indigenous lands. Even though the adoption of human rights have led to some amelioration, the author claims that this has proved unsatisfactory to address indigenous concerns for one reason: international law remains deeply rooted in colonial concepts, such as the concepts of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘property’. Given that these concepts clearly contradict indigenous cosmovisions, the author proposes a pluralist interpretation of indigenous land rights under international law. Understood as a method of interpretation, it is able to take into account not only ‘state law’ but also indigenous conceptions of the relationship between human beings and the land. It is thus proposed that such a methodological approach may decolonise colonial concepts of international law.