Indigenous population is inherent to history of North America and creates a particular complexity to contemporary social and migratory decision making, and governance. There is no international legally binding definition of the Indigenous people. Human rights lawyers struggle ¹ in their endeavor for lex that would encompass the jus. ² Commonly understanding of indigeneity works around notion of Indigenous communities, peoples and nations who have a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies while such now prevail in those territories or at least parts of them.

Special Rapporteur of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities – Jose R. Martines Cobo – in the Study of the Problem of Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations published by the United Nations highlights the people’s determination to preserve, develop, transmit to their future generations. ³ Notably, the Indigenous populations are not distinct to Canada. They are a range of peoples who are in each case defined based on basic indigenous markers.

Within the Indigenous Canadian history arrival of the foreign endeavors and European settlers created not only not always upheld treaty agreements, but also regulations, internal competitions and divisions as seen in the commercialization of the Indigenous harvest and the developments around the fur trade. In 16^th century the European exploration and colonization was only beginning, trading relations with the Aboriginal people were only developing. It is in the early 17^th century when the fur trade and establishment of such historically important trading posts was to take place and to highlight the unevenness of richness in certain animal and determination of trading success based on the geographic location. Some Indigenous were more likely to succeed in capitalizing through trading endeavours than others, therefore options of that time began to revolve around being middlemen between the European and Aboriginal nations, conquering of new hunting grounds or resorting to ambush and robbery of Aboriginal convoys. ⁴

The contemporary realities rely on these and further complexities of colonial background ⁵ and issues of extractive undertakings, consideration for political rights, as well as various factors such as economic and social ones. Moreover, discussion of health, problems of rural areas and facilities accessibility, housing policies and Indian housing problem, matters of education and language, employment within the scope of tradition and innovation within professional and livelihood practice ⁶ are an ongoing reminder of the legal and political complexity ⁷ while Indigenous are simultaneously recognized to commonly present a non-dominant sector of society.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in their shared history are in a woven complex relationship that calls for mutual respect and honesty and simultaneously raises question of legal and political capacity of the Indigenous peoples to enter an actual treaty and treaty relationship. The nuanced language, the process through which definitions are achieved and philological perceptions are shared, the Indigenous concepts through the roadmap created by the English language do all perplex such interaction. Raised become the questions of how Indigenous understandings as they relate to particular topics are actually found relevant to the shared relationship as much as those relationships are familiarly being acknowledged in some broad, perceived and commodified Indian sense, and how then the actual Indian understanding can be treated as mutual responsibility to take into account perhaps not less importantly than the sake of perception of humanity itself.

Sovereignty is crucial to everyone’s livelihood, and still in the meantime sovereignty is described as intangible simultaneously acknowledging that exercise of sovereign powers is an observable and tangible occurrence. Over the years world changes its meaning, as for example the natural competition is commonly seen to reach more social dimensions and those are seen as prevalent form of dominance in the present. Sovereignty is therefore proposed to be understood in a more timeless sense as an outmost power from which all specific political powers are defined. ⁸ In this search for measurements, politics and factors such as economic and social ones seem to be interchangeable categories to the sovereign existence of peoples. However, in some minds sovereignty is furthermore found to be something inherent to people or culture ⁹, or maybe even a spiritual source in some philological way it is defined of perceived.

Spirituality is alien and perplexing to governance in the Western thought. ¹⁰ Simultaneously, as earlier forms of nation building familiar to people through inseparability of religion and the law become overruled, spirituality cannot be compared to religion. There are also notable exceptions to this historical separation that can be found in the Middle Eastern geopolitical territories and reservation of traditional values in family law paralleling in some sense consideration and regard for the notions of Indigenous law whereby Indigenous law is not to be confused with the actual legal conception outlined by the Aboriginal law or such other considerations as the UN upheld human rights dictated freedom of religion and thought. United Nations Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities studies social problems of Aboriginal populations and situation of Indigenous populations. It also explores resolutions around those considerations, in part adding to the earlier mentioned central tenets pertaining to the existence, continuation and respective sovereign participation the concerns for religious rights and practices of the Indigenous. ¹¹

Various considerations inform of legal and political frameworks to actionably advance the Indigenous presence, rights and representation, as well as remind of obligations within Indigenous traditional law and non-Indigenous experiences that shape the common ground between Indigenous and other peoples in North American territories.

Group protections further include UN Nation Rebuilding Program and advancement of Indigenous self-government, The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Human Rights Act. Border crossing rights as outlined in the border crossing rights discussing Jay Treaty and numerous legal services such as Aboriginal Legal Services and organizations further uphold the presence of the Aboriginal law ¹² and the people who this law serves to protect. Furthermore, consideration for critical Indigenous legal thought directs toward inquiries and acceptance of the existence of other worlds then those found prevalent and represented in Canadian legal though. ¹³ In fact there are notable acknowledged historic differences such as those that result in Anglo-American and Roman-German legal undertakings. The foreignness of languages, their perplexity and the intricacies of learning those languages point to the need to include the language and understanding of responsibilities sought from each of the parties involved. ¹⁴ As much as law and the judicial process require precision, the shift of focus from solely the behavioural wrongs to encompassing acknowledgement of different perspectives, addressing of behaviours and actions that raise conflict and can bring the Indigenous people in conflict with the law while mindful of the potential encounters of some engagement – hence it is not the thought, but rather the actions are prosecuted – in activities and behaviours that on their own omission and create problematic oversight while forces others to follow someone else’s laws rather than the notion and the system of law itself.