A/HRC/45/38 ancestral land.80 States should also adopt measures allowing for the restoration of territories degraded and polluted due to development projects.81 37. In assessing what is just, fair and equitable, compensation should be commensurate with both pecuniary and non-pecuniary harm. In assessing the quantum of compensation for harm caused, the High Court of Australia upheld a significant award ($A 2.53 million) for the economic and cultural harm suffered by the Ngaliwurru and Nungali peoples as a consequence of past acts of extinguishment in the first litigated determination of native title compensation.82 The sum consisted of the market value of the land, a substantial amount for interest and cultural loss, assessed in a way that respected traditional law. 38. Some States have provisions for compensation, such as article 105 of the Constitution of Norway.83 In United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, the United States Supreme Court held that the federal Government had violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 when it took the sacred Black Hills without consent of the Sioux tribes. 84 The Court awarded $17.5 million plus interest dating from 1877, however the tribes refused to accept the award, which remains in a United States Department of the Treasury account now worth over $1 billion, and continue to seek the return of the land. IV. State recognition of land tenure rights 39. Security of tenure for indigenous peoples is a developing issue in most States. States have established different mechanisms for recognizing and adjudicating land tenure rights and provide different forms of use and ownership. While many of these mechanisms go some way towards respecting article 27 of the Declaration, most are hampered by the complexity of the processes and the myriad rights and stakeholders involved. A. Treaties and agreements, and reserved land 40. In some States, historic and contemporary treaties and other agreements recognizing land rights have been negotiated between the Government and indigenous peoples. Canada recognizes 70 historic treaties, and 25 comprehensive settlements affirm indigenous title to approximately 600,000 km² of land. 85 In British Columbia, a Treaty Commission facilitates treaty negotiations, and the Recognition and Reconciliation of Rights Policy for Treaty Negotiations in British Columbia, developed jointly by the State and participating indigenous nations, and based on the Declaration, has been established. 86 The government of British Columbia recently passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, which sets out a process to align the laws of British Columbia with the Declaration. 87 In a landmark case in the United States of America, the Supreme Court confirmed that land defined in treaties, making up much of eastern Oklahoma, remained a Native American reservation for the purposes of federal criminal law. 88 41. However, indigenous peoples’ and States’ interpretations of these treaties and agreements often differ widely, as in the case of the Treaty of Waitangi, in New Zealand, 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 12 Derek Inman, “From the global to the local: the development of indigenous peoples’ land rights internationally and in Southeast Asia”. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ Rights over Their Ancestral Lands and Natural Resources: Norms and Jurisprudence of the Inter‐American Human Rights System (2010), para. 216. Australia, High Court, Northern Territory v. Mr. A. Griffiths (deceased) and Lorraine Jones on behalf of the Ngaliwurru and Nungali Peoples, 13 March 2019. See also the submission by Australia. Submission by Norway. See https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/448/371/ and www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-thesioux-are-refusing-1-3-billion. See www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100028574/1529354437231 and submission by Canada. Submission by Celeste Haldane. Submission by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs. See www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf.