ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 introduces and articulates the process of aboriginal land recognition. In the beginning, it follows the Aboriginal struggle for recognition in Australia as a successful example. It describes and discusses their land rights from prerecognition to recognition and presents the legal and nonlegal reasons behind the recognition. It first introduces the major events of their struggle, such as the campaigns for equal rights and campaigns against discrimination, the referenda, and the land movement in Australia. Then it introduces the beginning of land legislation, the Woodward Commission and the judicial recognition in the Mabo case (No.2). This chapter also discusses other methods of land recognition and shows how they could be applied to the Bedouin case. Mainly it presents methods of land recognition from South Africa and Nicaragua, which rely on the approach of “recognition of customary land rights.” This chapter highlights the basic elements of the approach and introduces the basic requirements for the application of this approach in the Bedouin land rights case.
