Orca Personhood & First Nations Legal Orders

This session will explore how Orca Personhood may be understood through First Nations legal orders, UNDRIP, international human rights law, Rights of Nature, and possible pathways for recognition under Canadian law. Professor Williams will speak to the deeper legal question at the heart of this work: colonial law recognition of orca personhood, and how First Nations legal orders can guide the meaning, governance, protection, and responsibilities connected to orcas as living beings and relatives.

The presentation will also consider examples from other Indigenous peoples around the world, including legal personhood for rivers and mountains, and what these examples may teach us about guardianship, implementation, advocacy, and the risks of state-led recognition that does not properly uphold Indigenous jurisdiction.

This is an important learning opportunity for First Nations who are considering whether and how to support the Orca Personhood initiative. The session is intended to support informed discussion, questions, and future direction from First Nations as this work continues to be shaped by Indigenous law, governance, and leadership.

Professor Williams is an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and one of the leading Indigenous law scholars in North America. He is Regents Professor, E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law, and Founding Faculty Chair of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona. He has represented Indigenous communities before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, the United States Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of Canada.