Some Māori leaders are calling on King Charles III and the New Zealand Government to formally reject a legal concept Pope Nicholas V first pushed through in 1452 as a justification for colonisation.
The Doctrine of Christian Discovery was issued 317 years before Captain James Cook set foot in Aotearoa New Zealand and 190 years before Abel Tasman and his crew became the first Europeans to lay eyes on it.
But Māori and other indigenous peoples around the globe said the document provided the original justification used by all European colonising forces in the centuries that followed - and it is still causing damage today.
While the average New Zealander probably hasn't heard of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, Māori academics said it's crucial to our history and our future.
"Understanding the Doctrine of Discovery broadly throughout education and throughout society, in general, is really important for our progression as a country," said Tina Ngata, an indigenous rights advocate and representative for the Iwi Chairs Forum.
"We need to understand the injustice that we are trying to find our way out of in its entirety."
The Doctrine said that when Europeans arrive in a land for the first time, they could claim sovereignty in three ways: Discovery, "consent of the people" via a treaty, or conquest.
They took control of the natives, who they defined as non-human, by either converting them to Christianity, enslaving, or killing them.
Professor Claire Charters, the indigenous lead at the Human Rights Commission, said the Doctrine of Discovery was the legal grounds by which the British claimed the South Island. They used Te Tiriti o Waitangi to justify their actions in the North Island.
"As we know, under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, there was no cession of sovereignty, in fact, quite the opposite - the retention of tino rangatiratanga by Māori," Prof Charters said.
It raises the question, how did the Crown acquire sovereignty?
"The only Doctrine in which you can apply would be the Doctrine of Discovery to, I guess, legalise that claim to sovereignty. So yeah, that's the basis," Prof Charters said.
The practice of colonisation, under the auspices of the Doctrine, became international law.
"It [the Doctrine] set a context of worldwide imperial expansion by Europe based upon these ideas of European supremacy and that indigenous peoples were destined to be enslaved, and Europeans were destined to conquer," Ngata said.
It was used as a precedent in New Zealand domestic law up to as recently as 2003.
"That really sets the context for the dominant form of racism that we experience here in Aotearoa and that exists around the world," Ngata said.
That's why King Charles III is being asked by Māori leaders and indigenous groups around the globe to formally reject the Doctrine of Discovery.
Although New Zealand historian Professor Paul Moon is adamant there is no need.
"Basically, the people who call for that are completely wrong. This is an area where historians don't disagree, they're very clear about it. The Doctrine of Discovery is a Catholic doctrine going back to the 1400s," he said.
The important word there is Catholic. The British missionaries and most of the settlers in New Zealand weren't Catholic, they were Church of England, or Anglican.
"It has absolutely nothing to do with British colonisation here in the 1700s and 1800s. So it's really asking for an apology for something that wasn't done. It doesn't make sense on any level," Prof Moon said.
But Ngata said it's trickled down through the centuries and across the religious divide. She's working with the Government on the National Action Plan Against Racism and said the Doctrine needs to be dealt with.
"Once it gets embedded in government, who creates the policies, that's how you get systemic racism and systemic racism is really what creates the most harm," Ngata said.
"The bulk of racist harm sits in the systems that surrounds us every single day that leads to high mortality rates, that leads to hyper incarceration, and all these other types of poor outcomes for non-white communities," Ngata said.
Last year, Pope Francis visited Catholic schools in Canada, where there are mass indigenous graves, and apologised.
"Profound harm or genocide has clearly made an impact on the Vatican," Prof Charters said.
In March this year, the Catholic Church rejected the Doctrine.
"[The significance is] absolutely massive, you know, the symbolism of that. And the pressure that puts on colonial states to reject the doctrine as well," Prof Charters said.
Protests against colonialism feature in royal tours to many parts of the Commonwealth these days. Prof Charters said a rejection of the Doctrine by the King would be difficult but profound.
She said the rejection needs to also come from the New Zealand Government.
"When the previous Government signed us up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, it was specifically mentioned under the section that was about the Doctrine of Discovery is that New Zealand's position is that the Doctrine of Discovery is not relevant to New Zealand and that the Treaty of Waitangi and that the processes we have around that are what's relevant to New Zealand. So that continues to be our position," Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said.
The work on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was an agreement signed by the National Government in 2010 and is currently put on hold by this Government.
Prof Charters said: "There is this movement that is happening globally about authority and states sharing authority and that's where our government is an absolute outlier."
An expert in indigenous and constitutional law, Prof Charters said Aotearoa New Zealand prides itself as a global leader on indigenous rights but she believes we're lagging behind.
"You just have to look at Canada, for example, with Treaty settlements. They are all about finding ways for indigenous peoples to exercise their own jurisdiction over the lands, territories and resources, the contents, you know, tenfold, sometimes 100 fold in times of quantum that we are addressing through our government as part of the Treaty settlement process," Prof Charters said.
Kiwis might be surprised to learn the indigenous Sami people of Norway, Sweden and Finland have their own Parliament.
"So in Norway, Sweden and Finland, you have Sami Parliaments and Sami Parliaments have, as you mentioned, have devolved authority, but also their own adherence or authority being the indigenous peoples of those northern spaces to exercise and make law for and govern these territories," Prof Charters said.
"So, you know, people would struggle with that, or that kind of mainstream view would struggle with that, and not understand that it's, that's, that's happening elsewhere."
So what are the chances of King Charles rejecting the Doctrine of Discovery? Newshub approached his representative in New Zealand, Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro, for an interview but it was declined.
