Reconciling Sovereignties over Sea Country in the Northern Territory

The Blue Mud Bay Case, handed down by the High Court in 2008, was a historic decision that granted the strongest Aboriginal rights over sea country in Australia. After the Blue Mud Bay Case was handed down, the NT Government and Traditional Owners agreed that the best way to move forward was to negotiate how the relevant sea country would be governed. The pre-history and aftermath of the Blue Mud Bay Case reveals a series of evolving interactions between Indigenous and settler-state assertions of sovereignty in sea country. This book analyses five historical and contemporary episodes and demonstrates that the protracted nature of the Blue Mud Bay negotiations has been caused by the underlying struggle of the settler-state to acknowledge the challenge to the settler-state’s assertions of authority over sea country.