Justice in Paradise

A jurisprudential adventure story, Justice in Paradise recounts how a commitment to Native rights and an extraordinary passion for the rule of law have determined the course of Clark’s life. From a childhood in an Indian residential school, to the defense of aboriginal rights before the World Court, to being disbarred, Bruce Clark’s struggle has led him to a fight against the justice system itself. Justice in Paradise explains the legal and philosophical position behind Clark’s opposition to the Indian rights industry. He argues that the North American legal system causes the genocide of those indigenous peoples who embrace traditional religion and identity and accuses those who administer it with chicanery and abandoning the rule of law. Smeared in the media for his beliefs and attacked from the bench – he has been called “a disgrace to the bar” by the Chief Justice of Canada’s Supreme Court – his book Native Liberty, Crown Sovereignty has been hailed as “the most important and meticulous recent study of native rights in common law” (Canadian Journal of Political Science). Clark turned his back on a comfortable lawyer’s life to defend the rule of law and Native rights. He moved with his family to Indian reservations and then to squats while he argued his case before the World Court in Europe. Now, no longer able to practice law, he has been adopted by the Mohicans and together they are fighting for Liberty Island and the Hudson River drainage basin. In his extraordinary memoir, Justice in Paradise, Bruce Clark – hero to some, extremist to others – details the battles of a renegade’s life.

As a newsmaker, Bruce Clark is infamous – not for his discussions of the finer points of the law in relation to Aboriginal rights but for being dragged away by the police at the Native standoff at Gustafsen Lake, British Columbia. Now he is challenging the United States’ ownership of Liberty Island and the rest of the Hudson River drainage basin – the site of the world’s most potent symbol of freedom, the Statue of Liberty.

“This is an important book, advancing a serious, well-researched argument, written by a single-minded lawyer who has, in ways that would be beyond most people, devoted his life to the realization of what most people would describe as an idée fixe. It is also a gripping tale of this man’s life, and the things that a dissenting person must go through in Canada to win a hearing from his fellows.” Boyce Richardson, freelance writer. “a fascinating story that touches on many important episodes and characters of past, present, and future history over a truly global expanse of ideology, philosophy, and geography.” Anthony J. Hall, Native American studies, University of Lethbridge.