ABSTRACT
The legal framework within which resource development occurs is critical to the manner in which the social impacts of development are understood, and responses to them evolved. Framework studies can also serve a wider purpose in policy development, by providing a contextual background for the development of sector-specific policy how project impact and benefit distribution issues ought to be approached in future. An understanding of a country's system of government should underpin any investigation into its legal framework. A key issue in setting the stage for examining how relationships between people and land are regulated is the formal recognition of indigenous rights. In some jurisdictions, specific constitutional recognition and protection of indigenous rights provide an overarching umbrella within which specific recognition of land tenure, rights to resources and other inherent rights may be the subject of more a specific provisions.
