Despite recognizing Indigenous title to land in the early 1990s, Australia's domestic law has consistently refused to accommodate Indigenous claims of sovereignty or self-government. Unlike other common law countries, Australia's High Court continues to propagate the legacy of terra nullius by maintaining that sovereignty claims are non-justiciable by the courts of that state. It claims that the original assertion of sovereignty over Australia by the British is an "act of state" that cannot be challenged.

The recent case of R. v. Kapp marks a downward turning point in Aboriginal rights law in Canada. At issue was a federal ameliorative program that established an exclusive Native commercial fishery and whether such a program violated non-Native fishers' guarantee of equality under s. 15(1) of the Charter. Judge Kitchen of the British Columbia Provincial Court found that the Native fishery was not a valid ameliorative program under s. 15(2) of the Charter and was "analogous to racial discrimination." While the decision can be easily criticized on the grounds that the wrong s.

The centre of the Aboriginal people's livelihood and worldview is their special relationship with the land and its resources. However, increasingly rapid resource development threatens their future relationship with the land and the environment. Despite the Governments of Canada owing both private and public fiduciary duties to Aboriginal people, the devastation of the land continues without their rights and views being fully considered. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the province of Alberta.