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Ontario Tech acknowledges the lands and people of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation.

We are thankful to be welcome on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered by the Williams Treaties and are the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to many Indigenous nations and peoples.

We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we acknowledge that the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home.

This history is something we are all affected by because we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.

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The Implications of the Indigenous Right of Physical and Cultural Survival for Free, Prior and Informed Consent

Natalie Oman, Assistant Professor, Legal Studies, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

Nelcy Lopez-Cuellar, Independent Legal Researcher

Published April 19, 2018 by Technologies of Justice.

In the Technologies of Justice Conference session Law Process and Indigenous Rights, Natalie Oman and Nelcy Lopez-Cuellar discuss the implications of the Indigenous right of physical and cultural survival for free, prior, and informed consent. The session took place on January 26, 2018, at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. 

 

 

Oman and Lopez-Cuellar spoke about atrocity crimes and access to land rights, discussing land tenure systems and property rights, rights of consent (Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)), and the right to physical and cultural survival. The researchers defined the right to physical and cultural survival and explained the Indigenous concept that without land there is no life. They show the special relationship between Indigenous peoples and their territories and the need for more dynamic rights in terms of different ways of life and cultures. They described how cultural development needs to be considered, and how FPIC is only the beginning of Indigenous international legal rights in human rights and United Nations laws.