Indigenous Peoples' Rights and the Australian State.

An "over-compliant" state is one that paradoxically takes actions which recognize specific rights or a category of rights that go beyond or even against that state's international human rights treaty obligations or its normative international commitments. Since there is no existing literature in International Relations which would explain why a state might paradoxically comply or "over-comply" with its stated commitments, there is also no theory to explain what would propel a state to "over-comply" with an emergent norm. "Over-compliance" in indigenous rights occurs under a particular set of conditions: 1) when there is a strong presence of the international indigenous rights movement within the state, 2) when the state places high value on its reputation as a "good global citizen", and 3) when change occurs in the state's domestic discourse as it seeks to locate its own post-colonial identity in a globalized world. By examining the "over-compliance" of Australian behavior in indigenous rights, I aim to expose the limits of the current international discourse and the potential to push that discourse further to better accommodate the full spectrum of indigenous rights. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]