International Relations

C02(b) - Indigenous Autonomy and World Politics

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 10:15am to 11:45am | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : James Fitzgerald (Government)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : James Fitzgerald (Government)

UNDRIP, State Sovereignty, & Indigenous Collective Rights to Self-Determination: Makonen Bondoc (McGill University), Catherine Lu (McGill University)
Abstract: The paper I wish to present examines how international law and international human rights law fail to affirm Indigenous collective rights to self-determination (CRSD), the operationalization of Indigenous CRSD as Indigenous human rights through the international human rights regime (HRR), and the potential implications for Canada’s implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). I explore how the doctrinal, theoretical, and practical foundations of international law e.g., terra nullius, state-sovereignty, international legal personality, non-interference, etc., influence the HRR and how this international structural condition can potentially disincentivize states from recognizing and supporting all Indigenous CRSD articulated within UNDRIP. I analyze the prospects for Indigenous CRSD realization and UNDRIP implementation within a statist human rights framework that potentially interprets Indigenous human rights within the context of territorial integrity and political unity of the state re: section 46.1 of UNDRIP; and argue that Indigenous peoples’ currently legally inferior, minority population, non-self-determining, non-diplomatic status coupled with the statist decision-making mechanisms inherent to the HRR, and international human rights law and order, make the prospects for UNDRIP implementation precarious due to inherent power imbalances in the subsequent implementation of the human rights framework. Overall, I aim to show that: realizing the implementation of UNDRIP will require fundamental political, legal, and normative structural transformations within contemporary Canadian settler-state - Indigenous relations and international law and society. However, conversely, without these transformations, UNDRIP implementation efforts will not successfully support effective realization of the full range of Indigenous CRSD.

Publicity Campaigns or Substantive Gains? Inclusion of Non-State Actors in Canada’s International Negotiations: Tomas Hatala (Carleton University), Gopika Solanki (Carleton University)
Abstract: This project explores the consultation process conducted by the Canadian government (2012-2018) as part of the Columbia River Treaty (CRT) negotiation. My research illustrates the shifting landscape in Canada toward the inclusion of domestic (Duty to Consult) and international (UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) norms. Borrowing from Kirsten Kozolanka’s theory of the “publicity state”, I examine the consultation process concerning this US-Canada waterway as a “permanent campaign”. I ask whether the consultations leading up to the negotiations go beyond optics and managing dissent, and how this legitimizes Canada as a normative actor on the domestic and international stage. Relating directly to the conference theme of belonging and territory, the competing claims on the Columbia River - as a source of power, flood control, salmon restoration, environmental sustainability, tourism – brought together numerous non-state actors in the consultation process. These actors had no ability to formally participate in the subsequent negotiations themselves. Nevertheless, they were motivated by a strong desire to shape the territory upon which they live and consequently collaborated across disparate networks such as Indigenous peoples, environmental NGOs, religious groups, academics, local municipalities. Conducting 20 interviews as well as an extensive documentary analysis, I trace the consultation process and the non-state actors involved and focus on the consultation design as a case of “permanent campaign” – one that evolves with the public perception of the issue. Comparing the Canadian and the USA processes, I argue that the Canadian state emphasized the fluidity and openness of its consultation process to enhance its legitimacy and thus, in turn, its bargaining position in future bilateral negotiations between the two states. I found that despite their participation in the consultations being oriented toward the state’s “publicity”, non-state actors nevertheless benefited from the inclusion of their mandates such as ecosystem considerations and salmon restoration. I ultimately argue that non-state actors’ inclusion in the Columbia River Treaty negotiation creates a precedent for their institutionalization in Canada’s future international negotiations.

Beyond Consultation: Indigenous Autonomy, Chinese Investment, and Canada’s Critical Minerals Strategy: Leah Sarson (Dalhousie University), Will Greaves (University of Victoria)
Abstract: This paper questions what spurs cooperation between the various actors at the centre of Canada’s resource extraction sector in the far north in the context of the contentious relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state. Drawing on International Relations and Indigenous studies scholarship, and specifically paradiplomacy, postcolonial, and constructivist literature, the paper maps Indigenous engagement in several critical mineral projects in northern Canada and Chinese influence and effect in the sector. By exploring the convoluted relations between Indigenous peoples in the far north, Canada, China, and mining proponents, the research exposes multiple and sometimes seemingly intractable friction points. Preliminary research suggests that some Indigenous communities exploit settler colonial government conflations of economic self-sufficiency and political autonomy as part of broader strategies of self-determination. Consequences of such strategies include a retrenchment of state authority with possible inverse effects for industry and Indigenous peoples. Shared governance models in which the state’s role is one of facilitator rather than colonial imperium offer one hypothetical approach to support Indigenous autonomy and contend with evitable conflict. These new relationships and dynamics in the far north highlight not just the need for innovative governance arrangements that recognize the rights and autonomy of Indigenous peoples, but also the consequences of these arrangements for Canadian policy makers and state authority.