Prompted by a surging Māori protest movement, for the past 50 years the courts of New Zealand, lawmakers and the Waitangi Tribunal -– a permanent body set up to adjudicate treaty matters -– have navigated the differences in the treaty’s versions and tried to redress breaches by constructing the meaning of the treaty's principles in their decisions.

Tens of thousands of people gathered outside New Zealand's Parliament in the nation's capital city of Wellington to protest a bill that aims to redefine the country's founding treaty between the Māori and the British Crown. The protest, over a proposed ...