"Overlap": Causes and implications of contested indigenous claims to territory in the context of the BC treaty process.

The BC treaty process employs a model of claims negotiation new in the Canadian experience. Contrary to long-standing federal claims policy, treaties are being settled in areas where multiple indigenous groups lay claim to the same territory. Drawing on theories of human territoriality, critical legal geography, and indigenous geography, this thesis examines the indigenous socio-spatial identities at work within (and beyond) the BC treaty process, the spatial dimensions of aboriginal rights as articulated by Canadian courts, and BC Supreme Court actions that have arisen because of overlapping claims. Two overarching goals of the BC treaty process are to achieve certainty of jurisdiction and to avoid aboriginal rights litigation. This thesis concludes that insufficient Crown and judicial engagement with the issue of overlapping claims undermines both of these goals. --P. ii.