If enough people demand that governments honor the legal commitments made to the people on whose land colonial nations were founded, and do so with sufficient force, politicians interested in reelection won’t be able to ignore them forever. And the courts, too—however much they may claim to be above such influences—are inevitably shaped by the values of the societies in which they function. A handful of courageous rulings notwithstanding, if an obscure land right or treaty appears to be systematically ignored by the culture as a whole, it will generally be treated tentatively by the courts.
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