Witness to the Human Rights Tribunals
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Bruce Granville Miller
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Preface by:
Sharon Venne-Manyfingers
About this book
On the twelfth floor of an undistinguished-looking high-rise in a Canadian city, a tribunal adjudicates the human rights of Indigenous individuals. Why isn’t the process working?
First establishing the context with an in-depth look at the role of anthropological expertise in the courts, Witness to the Human Rights Tribunals then draws on testimony, ethnographic data, and years of tribunal decisions to show how specific cases are fought. Bruce Miller’s candid analysis reveals the double-edged nature of the tribunal itself, which re-engages with the trauma and violence of discrimination that suffuses social and legal systems while it attempts to protect human rights.
Should the human rights tribunal system be replaced, or paired with an Indigenous-centred system? How can anthropologists promote understanding of the pervasive discrimination that Indigenous people face? This important book convincingly concludes that any reform must consider the problem of symbolic trauma before Indigenous claimants can receive appropriate justice.
Author / Editor information
Bruce Granville Miller is a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia. He has served as an expert witness in numerous human rights tribunal cases and his work with Indigenous communities in the context of presenting oral history has been particularly instrumental. Among his many publications are Oral History on Trial: Recognizing Aboriginal Narratives in the Courts and “Be of Good Mind”: Essays on the Coast Salish.
Reviews
engagingly practical instead of theoretical.
---"[Miller’s] approach is valuable. It allows critical details that would be ignored by lawyers and case reports to be recorded"
---"This book is a masterful analysis of the ongoing struggle over Indigenous litigation in Canada and the US, written by one of the leading experts on the subject."
Topics
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Front Matter
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Contents
vii -
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Foreword
ix -
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Acknowledgments
xii -
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Introduction
3 - Anthropology and Law
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My Life in Anthropology and Law
13 -
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Symbolic Violence, Trauma, and Human Rights
27 -
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Tinning the Evidence, Discrediting the Expert Witness
43 -
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Entering Evidence in an Adversarial System
72 -
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Anthropologists versus Lawyers
83 - The Tribunal
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The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal
99 -
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McCue v. University of British Columbia
126 -
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Menzies v. Vancouver Police Department
160 -
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Conclusion
178 -
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Case Law and Legal Materials
193 -
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References
195 -
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Index
208
