‘He Rangi Tā Matawhāiti, He Rangi Tā Matawhānui: Looking Towards 2040’ by Associate Professor Māmari Stephens is the final essay in the 2018 collection: Indigenous Peoples and the State: International Perspectives on the Treaty of Waitangi.
In this essay, my wonderful colleague, Māmari Stephens, looks forward to the bicentenary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 2040. Stephens frames this chapter with ‘an instrumental question’, in essence asking, what is the best mechanism for giving effect to the relationship and recognising the rights for which the Treaty of Waitangi provides? She draws together strands of the political, constitutional, legal, academic, and public discussions of the Treaty of Waitangi to examine the ways in which we might try to answer that question. Constitutional issues, never far from discussion of the Treaty, remain central to the path to 2040 that Stephens outlines. However, this is perhaps not the same kind of constitutionalism that we have seen in the past. The kind of constitutionalism that Stephens articulates is one that includes Māori constitutional principles at its core, that is grounded in the lived realities of individuals, institutions, and communities of Aotearoa New Zealand. And it is a constitutionalism that takes for granted the place of the Treaty of Waitangi and looks to how the Treaty’s various interpretive communities might give shape to the Treaty partnership as we approach its 200th year.
Ahi-kā-roa 