Legal pluralism is possible and supports self-determination, but only having an alternative system can legitimize Indigenous conceptions of IP law.

Legal pluralism is a reality, ignored by colonization, yet it previously was and presently is an essential function of society. There are myriad examples in modern western legal systems when micro law systems operate within larger, macro law systems, where the former is parallel to and accommodated by the latter. One example is the principle of federalism where state law sometimes operates alongside, in addition to, or instead of federal law. Another example is the concept of private ordering or self-regulation characterized by the law of the firm or corporation or in the context of Internet activities. A third example is the rise of the supranational legal regime, such as the European Union. Thus, the concept of legal pluralism can be invoked as the foundation for developing a sui generis system of legal protection based upon Indigenous law in functional operation alongside state, national, and international laws to protect Indigenous resources and8 intangible assets.

II. ACKNOWLEDGING HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Profound is the reality that the benefits of globalization and world trade are promoted without deference to the pervasive poverty that persists in indigenous and minority communities around the world. Why is it that development and progress are measured only in a snap- shot of time? When raising issues of the rule of law, democracy, and wealth distribution for Indigenous communities in contemporary society, particularly in the area of integrating and applying Indigenous law, distracting arguments center on certain long-held misperceptions constructed by dominant settler societies about Indigenous Peoples that reflect back to the "uncivilized savage." Historical images and misperceptions of the uncivilized savage are rebranded in the public's consciousness through settler-promoted, counter-mobilizing narratives that promote cultural commodification and the ongoing and successful repression of Indigenous Peoples.

These misperceptions are accompanied by certain irrational beliefs about the inequities that will befall the dominant settler society in the event that Indigenous Peoples reclaim their rights to land, territory, and resources, i.e., the point at which the power-oppression paradigm shifts toward normative balance. Some of the concerns about inequitable treatment are framed according to rights as material, tangible, and rivalrous. The tug-of-war conception invoked by the dominant settler society pits the primacy of the value of loss of property and proprietary interests of whites against the value of loss suffered by Indigenous Peoples; adheres a welfare-based framework and narrative to Indigenous Peoples who are forced to rely upon the dominant settler society for protection of Indigenous property and proprietary interests; and derides any attempt to invoke a rights-based framework for recognizing the legitimacy of Indigenous interests by proclaiming that Indigenous Peoples' rights cannot co-exist with the dominant settler society's rights, interests, laws, and policies. As a result, attempts to place into service Indigenous law to indigenize western laws, in this context intellectual property laws, are all but condemned as ancient,9 inflexible and, at times, uncivilized.