Talk: Associate Professor Mary Liston

Hear Associate Professor Mary Liston (University of British Columbia) give a brief comparison of Australia/Canada/New Zealand and how the three branches of government, in their own way, advance/hider progress in Indigenous relations.

Her working thesis is that in each jurisdiction, one branch takes a noticeable lead while one of the other branches is, relatively speaking, the most passive. The overarching objective is for each jurisdiction to consider and assess the institutional activity of others for insight, guidance etc. For example, compared to Canada, the legislative branch is dominant in Australia. In Canada, the executive branch is dominant in propelling change and therefore should look to Australia for ideas about initiating change through the legislative branch (even if, as recently, this has failed).

Associate Professor Mary Liston

Mary Liston, Associate Professor at the Peter A Allard School of Law, UBC, specializes in public law, including administrative and constitutional law, legal theory, and law and literature. She has developed sub-areas of expertise in the emerging field of Aboriginal administrative law, legal pluralism, and modes of interpreting legal texts. Professor Liston is a co-convenor of the Canadian Network of Law and Humanities, and she holds a BA Hons, MA, LLB, PhD, and a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ethics and Law.