1. Research Projects: Mining and Indigenous Lands Legal Dimensions
Associate Professor Margaret Stephenson
TC Beirne School of Law
University of Queensland
2017

2. ‘Free, Prior and Informed Consent’ (FPIC): Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Mining Industry on their Territories
FPIC standards have been adopted by:
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP): e.g. see Article 32.
International Finance Corporation (IFC): Performance Standards on Social and Environmental Sustainability (1 and 7).
Equator Principle Financial Institutions (including the World Bank and Asian Development Bank).
Note:
If resource developers and mining proponents obtain finance from the IFC and Equator Principle Institutions then the resource proponents must adopt FPIC standards in negotiating mining operations on Indigenous lands.
Project aims:
To review the key legal issues in developing policy and procedure to incorporate FPIC into a resource development/mining project.

3. Information Asymmetries in Recording Native Title: The Potential of Blockchain
Issue:
Inadequacies in the current recording and registering native title lands and the subsequent dealings with those lands.
See Stephenson & Tehan, “The Recording and Management of Indigenous Lands and Title: Is Reform Required? (2015) 24 (1) Australian Property Law Journal.
Project aims:
To outline a framework for using Blockchain technology to develop information architecture to record dealings with native title lands and to address information asymmetries in managing native title lands.
Outcomes:
Demonstrate the workability of a Blockchain based land registry schemes for native title lands.
Alleviate difficulties faced by governments, miners, resource industry proponents and developers, due to the problems in ascertaining precisely who holds what rights and interests in exactly what native title land.
Facilitate the development of native title lands and land-based resources.