Bruce Allan Clark

For his dissertation, Clark investigated support of the proposition that the Privy Council recognized Indian sovereignty in the Privy Council decision in the 1704 Mohegan Indians v. Connecticut case.

From this case, Clark concluded that Indian land claims in all of British North America would require an independent, third party adjudication.

In Native Liberty, Clark says that the "British Crown recognized the right to self-government for Indians on unceded lands" in the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

Bruce Allan Clark (born 22 June 1944) is a Canadian native rights lawyer, writer and activist.

He rose to attention as part of the Gustafsen Lake Standoff and its aftermath.

Tsenhu'qw had signed a petition asserting that Canada was "breaching existing international law relative to the liberty and possession of themselves and the indigenous nations for whom they spoke, and that the consequence was genocide contrary" to the 1948 international Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

While The Law Society of Upper Canada had dismissed attempts by the B.C. legal establishment to have Dr. Clark disbarred, ruling that "the genocide of which Mr. Clark speaks is real... we are sympathetic moreover to his assertion that the Courts have been unwilling to hear his argument."

Clark graduated LLB from the University of Western Ontario in 1969, being called to the bar in 1971.

Raphals cited a Queen's Law Journal review by Queen's University law professor, Noel Lyon, describing Native Liberty, as "[perhaps] the most important single piece of writing on the subject of Aboriginal rights in Canada" since the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Calder v British Columbia (AG).

Clark described how he first began working on native sovereignty law when he was retained by Temagami First Nation (the body politic of the Teme-Augama Anishnabai people) on February 11, 1973, to "defend their native sovereignty."

The Temagami Land Caution was a claim filed with land offices in August 1973 that prevented development including mining on Crown land.

According to Teme-Augama Anishnabai oral history, they had never signed a treaty.

The Ontario government announced plans to build an $80 million ski resort on Maple Mountain, known as Chee'Bai'Gin or "Where the spirits go."

The provincial government considered the mountain to be public land while the Teme-Augama Anishnabai claimed stewardship over the mountain.

In his book, Justice in Paradise, Clark described how he and his wife liquidated his law practice in southern Ontario, sold his home and assets, and took up residence in the remote Bear Island community from 1978 through 1985 where they brought up their young children.

This right has been "entrenched" in the Constitution Act, 1982 and therefore provides a "legal basis for native claims to self-government before the Supreme Court of Canada."

In his article Raphals also cited Vice-Chief of the Grand Council of the Cree of Quebec, Diom Saganash, regarding Clark's approach.

Saganash said, "I think he's right but there's no judge in the country who would agree to it."

Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Vice Chief Lawrence Courtoreille asked, "Even supposing you got a piece of paper from the Supreme Court saying you had a right to self-government, then what? Who is going to enforce it?"

While Clark's arguments may be valid, many regard "his quest as quixotic".

In Justice in Paradise, Clark described his journey in Europe in which he was essentially accusing North American judges of complicity in genocide.

The Clark family were accompanied by Harold (Tsenhu'qw) Pascal representing the Lil'Wat nation.

According to Raphals, Clark worked without compensation but did have a promissory note, signed in 1984 by Chief Potts from the Teme-Augama (Temagami) Executive Council for $7 million.

Clark eventually sued for payment and the relationship ended.

Early on Clark took an oath with Chief Gary Potts to "devote his life to the fight for Indian sovereignty", an oath that he kept even though his close relationship with Potts and involvement in the Bear Island case ended in 1985.

He returned to higher education with an MA in North American constitutional history also from the UWO in 1987, followed in 1990 by a PhD in comparative law from the Department of Jurisprudence in the Faculty of Law in the University of Aberdeen School of Law, Scotland.

Clark's 1990 book Native Liberty, Crown Sovereignty published by McGill–Queen's University Press was described as "widely researched, up-to-date, and persuasively argued" by the Canadian Book Review Annual.

Native Liberty described how "native liberty and crown sovereignty complement each other in Canada" where the imperial British North America claimed overall sovereignty and delegated powers to colonial governments who in turn would accommodate the liberty of the natives.

"The jurisdiction of federal and provincial governments to govern ceded territory is constitutionally counter-balanced by the jurisdiction of the aboriginal peoples to govern themselves upon territory they have not voluntarily ceded. Hansen describes Clark as a "controversial writer, and activist." He further noted that, "[d]espite his academic qualifications, Clark's behaviour in trials and hearings was characterized as 'unconventional' and 'unprofessional' resulting in numerous sanctions by the courts."

In his May 1991 article in Canadian Forum, Philip Raphals described Clark as "on a one-man crusade to get these arguments [as set out in Native Liberty, Crown Sovereignty] before the Supreme Court of Canada."

According to The Globe and Mail, in her May 28, 2015, lecture at the Global Centre for Pluralism Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin said that Canada's attempt to commit "cultural genocide" against aboriginal people "that began in the colonial period" is the "worst stain on Canada's human-rights record".

The Globe described her remarks as "unparalleled".

According to Maclean's, on June 2, 2015, when Justice Murray Sinclair released the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the abuses of Aboriginal children in residential schools he used the phrase, "cultural genocide".

He said, "Today, I stand before and acknowledge that what took place in residential schools amounts to nothing short of cultural genocide – a systematic and concerted attempt to extinguish the spirit of Aboriginal peoples."

In 2018, Clark published Ongoing Genocide Caused by Judicial Suppression of the "Existing" Aboriginal Rights which includes essays that were published in Dissident Voice from the late 2000s onwards.

In a master's degree thesis, Paul Hanson compares Clark with scholars of "traditional Indigenous sovereignty" with "Taiaiake Alfred, Dale Turner, John Borrows, and Jean Cohen, each of whom offers unique, controversial, and sometimes disputed insights into sovereignty's meaning to Indigenous peoples."

As a scholar, Clark has been compared with Taiaiake Alfred, who is also more inclined to take direct action whereas Dale Turner, who calls for the "resurgence of indigeneity and traditional governance regimes", "approaches the issue from an intellectual, persuasive perspective" and is "reflective and open to reasoned discussion and negotiation."

Clark "rejects most Indigenous law court decisions as ultra vires based on his formalist interpretation of historical documents, statutes, and proclamations."

Hansen argues that John Borrows and Clark both "focus on judicial processes and outcomes" with Borrows "analyzing the Delgamuukw trials to demonstrate the courts' willful ignorance of Indigenous history and traditions."

He describes Borrows as a "respected advocate for Indigenous causes" while grouping Clark with Russell Means and Pamela Palmater as "outspoken activists".