Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

248 • Truth & Reconciliation Commissionof Aboriginal land claims in Canada, historian Jennifer Reid explains why the Doctrineremains relevant today.Most non-Aboriginal Canadians are aware of the fact that Indigenous peoplescommonly regard land rights as culturally and religiously significant. Fewernon-natives, I suspect, would consider their own connection with property inthe same light, and fewer still would regard the legal foundation of all land rightsin Canada as conspicuously theological. In fact, however, it is. The relationshipbetween law and land in Canada can be traced to a set of fifteenth-centurytheological assumptions that have found their way into Canadian law.... TheDoctrine of Discovery was the legal means by which Europeans claimed rights ofsovereignty, property, and trade in regions they allegedly discovered during theage of expansion. These claims were made without consultation or engagementof any sort with the resident populations in these territories—the people towhom, by any sensible account, the land actually belonged. The Doctrine ofDiscovery has been a critical component of historical relationships betweenEuropeans, their descendants, and Indigenous peoples, and it underlies theirlegal relationships to this day, having smoothly and relatively uncriticallytransitioned from Roman Catholic to international law. 19In April 2010, the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See (the un representativefrom the Roman Catholic Vatican) issued a statement regarding the Doctrine ofDiscovery at the ninth session of the un Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 20 Thestatement noted that earlier papal bulls regarding territorial expansion and the forcedconversion of Indigenous peoples had subsequently been abrogated or annulled bythe Roman Catholic Church.Regarding the question of the doctrine of discovery and the role of the Papal BullInter Coetera, the Holy See notes that Inter Coetera, as a source of internationallaw … was first of all abrogated by the Treaty of Tordesilles in 1494, and thatCircumstances have changed so much that to attribute any juridical valueto such a document seems completely out of place.… In addition, it was alsoabrogated by other Papal Bulls, for example, Sublimis Deus in 1537, whichstates, “Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians,are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property… should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect.” This view wasexpanded upon and reinforced in Immensa Pastorum of [Pope] Benedict XIVof 20 December 1741 and a number of other Papal Encyclicals, statements anddecrees. If any doubt remains, it is abrogated by Canon 6 of the Code of CanonLaw of 1983 which abrogates in general all preceding penal and disciplinarylaws.… Therefore, for International Law and for the Catholic Church Law, theBull Inter Coetera is a historic remnant with no juridical, moral or doctrinalvalue.… The fact that juridical systems may employ the “Doctrine of Discovery”as a juridical precedent is now therefore a characteristic of the laws of those