Aborigine Land Rights Upheld

Australia’s High Court has dismissed a challenge to a law giving aborigines land rights.

Under the law upheld Thursday, aborigines who can prove traditional links to government-controlled land can claim ownership through special tribunals.

Five states accepted the federal law, but the sixth, Western Australia, challenged it in court. It argued that large tracts of Outback land will be transferred to aboriginal tribes, endangering mining and other economically important projects.

Prime Minister Paul Keating, the architect of the land rights law, is currently working on a compensation package for aborigines who live in cities.

With their tribal structures lost long ago through generations of dispossession, most cannot claim traditional links with land as many Outback aborigines can.