On December 15, 1999, the people of Venezuela approved a new Constitution, which is the first Venezuelan constitution to entrench the rights of indigenous peoples. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the different theoretical issues raised by the problem of rights for indigenous peoples. It is argued that indigenous rights are collective rights based on the value of cultural membership. This implies both an investigation of the value of cultural membership and of the criticisms that the multicultural perspective has offered against that point of view. / Indigenous peoples have the moral right to preserve their cultures and traditions. It is submitted that indigenous peoples have a double moral standing to claim differential treatment based on cultural membership, because they constitute cultural minorities and they were conquered and did not lend their free acceptance to the new regime imposed upon them. Therefore, they constitute a national minority, with moral standing to claim self-government and cultural rights.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.31158 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Frías, José. |
| Contributors | Lametti, David (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Laws (Institute of Comparative Law.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001793489, proquestno: MQ70338, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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