This paper describes and analyses the sources and content of Taiwanese and international law relating to indigenous hunting and gathering practices. The recognition of practices and the traditional territories in which these activities carried out is considered by indigenous groups to be a core aspect of their self-determination claims. It argues that while current law gives significant recognition to hunting and gathering rights, the rights have been inadequately implemented, and are inappropriately circumscribed by majoritarian notions of 'traditional' and indigenous culture. The result is that historic indigenous uses of land have been narrowly circumscribed using an unjustified notion of a static traditional culture and activities. It further argues that the failure to adequately delineate the extent of traditional territory and allow for co-management of the hunting and gathering practices within the territory intrude upon indigenous self-determination as guaranteed by international instruments and national law.

This paper will discuss part of the legal history of logging in New Zealand relating to the water transport of logs and timber which gave rise to the Timber Floating Act 1873 and the Timber-floating Act 1884. It considers the little-known decision by Judge FD Fenton sitting as a district judge in Pope v Appleby, which adopted an American definition of a navigable waterway to limit the rights of riparian owners to obstruct log drives; thus allowing for continued log driving in spite of the 1873 Act which had specifically excluded legal protection for driving. It argues that Appleby is evidence that New Zealand courts instrumentally modified English common law rules and precedent, or construed statutory language in a manner consistent with the 19th-century colonial consensus involving the desirability of extractive economic development in New Zealand.

This paper argues that aboriginal rights in Canada have been greatly affected by 19th century governmental and social conflicts within the Canadian colonial state. These conflicts, largely over the ownership of land and regulatory authority between the federal government and the provinces necessarily impacted the First Nations on the ground while affecting how their legal claims were recognized and implemented. In particular they impacted the legal efficacy of treaty rights, the scope of rights recognised by the courts and an expansive legally protected notion of indigenous sovereignty. As a result, the rights now protected under sec. 25 and 35 of the Constitution Act 1982 are more restricted than the text might imply.

This article examines the legal recognition of indigenous interests in Japan and Taiwan. Both these states have moved largely away from an ethnically defined conception of national identity and have taken steps to legally recognise and protect indigenous communities and autonomy. However, the process has privileged indigenous cultural policies while providing less protection for other rights such as autonomy and control of natural resources. This article argues the emphasis on cultural protection and the rhetorical embrace of other indigenous rights without the concomitant policy and legal implementation is because international indigenous norms remain prescriptively ambiguous in the Japanese and Taiwanese context and are difficult to reconcile with Japanese and Taiwanese national identities.

Japan signed the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1992, and ratified it in 1993. Since that time, the Japanese Governmenthas sought to include the consideration for, and the preservation of biodiversity in the domestic legislative process. Howeverthese efforts did not attain full realization until 2008, when under the increasing pressure and influence of domestic environmental movement, the Japanese Government established the Babic Act on Biodiversity (Act No. 58 of 2008). This paper will examine and summarize the localization process of the CBDthrough an analysis of three sectors of Japanese society: state actors (including local governments), societal actors (non-governmental movements andinterest groups, etc.), and private actors. The paper considers the interaction of these various sectors in the development of biodiversity policy and argues for the potential the "Environmentalization" of Japanese law, i.e. that the legislative and the regulatory process include as a background assumption that biodiversity is an objective of regulatory protection. This environmentalization had become an important component in Japan's self-perception as a "responsible power" in international environmental circles.

China has been criticised by human rights organisations for its failure to provide sufficient safeguards for involuntary confinement and discharge, involuntary experimental medical trials, and forced treatment of those with mental health problems. The legal shortcomings have become increasingly salient given the growing emphasis on the civil rights of mental health patients across the globe and China’s recent accession to Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In an effort to address these domestic problems and international responsibilities, China adopted its first National Mental Health Law in 2012. According to Xinhua state news agency the law seeks to 'curb abuses regarding compulsory mental health treatment and protect citizens from undergoing unnecessary treatment or illegal hospitalization’. The protracted 27 year discussion over funding, oversight responsibilities, admissions criteria, accreditation standards, and community mental health services, has led to a law which seeks to provide one national standard for the delivery and treatment of mental health services as well as standards and safeguards for involuntary commitment. This paper examines the provisions of the law as they relate to the definition of mental disorder and involuntary civil commitment. It argues that the new statute provides some safeguards to prevent unfair or abusive involuntary committal, as well as incorporating additional normative standards (based on international and domestic law) which should provide for additional measures to protect individuals who suffer from mental illness. However, the broad definition of mental illness in the Act could lead to involuntary committal. Likewise, there is a lack of extra-medical or due process safeguards that could enhance the ability of the system to maintain and protect personal dignity. Additional changes are therefore required to enable the Law to reach the standard required under the Chinese Constitution and the Convention.