2 according to law.  All are equal before the law and the law is the protector of individual liberties.    However in Dicey’s world, where these thoughts grew, there were only two actors to be concerned about, the individual and the state. The social order was so homogenous that there was no need to consider particular cultural groups.  The sociological concept of nation, as a people of common history and tradition, and the political concept of the state, as the government of a large, defined territory, were either fused in fact, or were fused as an ideal.    That was probably not the case for most of the world at that time.  It is certainly not the case for many states today.  Bosnia and Rwanda for example, have shown that peace requires that groups too should be accommodated within the state.    Moreover, the recognition of only the state and the individual was rarely possible in the New World, where invariably, more than one culture was involved in the formation of the state.  From the 1830’s the Native Americans were provided for in the United States as domestic, dependent nations.  The description of them as nations was undoubtedly correct, sociologically, although the term is now politically inconvenient because of the confusing conception of the nation state.  On the other hand, Canada developed concepts of inherent rights of autonomy coupled with fiduciary obligations.  Australia turned to the doctrine of aboriginal rights.  New Zealand grafted on a concept of partnership through the development of a treaty jurisprudence.    In the New World the founding cultures of the modern state were not necessarily limited to two, like the indigenous and the British.  For example, the French Canadian and Metis were founding cultures in Canada as also were the Afrikaners in South Africa.     However, that which most distinguishes Dicey’s world from the world of today is the predominance of multicultural states as a result of globalisation.  Moreover, where multiculturalism, along with affirmative action, was once tolerated as temporary and awaiting incorporation, it is now celebrated.  It is here to stay.  Indeed, it has the