Solomon islands land law : usurpation and emancipation of customary land law

Abstract

This work is an investigation into Solomon Islands land law and into how that law found itself entangled in the conflicting forces that became the undercarriages for British colonialism in the Pacific. From a legal perspective, the impact of the British presence in Solomon Islands during the eighty five years between 1893 and 1978 was far from tranquil. Colonial rule was transacted under a legal and political framework that had revolutionary objectives and intentions. Its primary aim was the subjugation of the indigenous political and legal order and the establishment of an introduced system of authority, sometimes under the guise of humanitarian endeavours. Brookfield F.M., Waitangi and Indigenous Rights - Revolution, Law and Legitimation, (Auckland University Press, 1999) 58.