The Foot and the Spear: Enlightenment Natural Law, Translation, and Indigenous Sovereignty in Australia.

This article examines the role of translation in European Enlightenment natural law theories of occupation and its complicity in colonialist sovereignty claims, focusing on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century texts such as Samuel Pufendorf's *De jure naturae et gentium* and their translations by Basil Kennett and Jean Barbeyrac. It contrasts these with the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, which proposes a form of translation that maintains the specificity of Indigenous sovereignty linked to place and custom while engaging in dialogue with Western legal and scientific idioms. The article highlights how Enlightenment natural law translations aimed at universal applicability often erased or overwrote Indigenous concepts through claims of untranslatability and sovereign indivisibility, whereas the Uluru Statement's approach to translation fosters pluralism and shared sovereignty, exemplified by the Indigenous concept of *makarrata*—a process of reconciliation and truth-telling. The failure of the 2023 Australian referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament is discussed as a contemporary instance of resistance to such pluralistic translation and shared sovereignty, underscoring ongoing settler colonial challenges in recognizing Indigenous legal and linguistic traditions.