Collective Self-Determination without Resource Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
pp. 106-127
Author(s):  
Megan Blomfield
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Territorial Jurisdiction ◽  
Common Ownership ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Political Communities

This chapter defends the principle of collective self-determination as a second principle of natural resource justice. This defence emerges from consideration of the principle of natural resource sovereignty, which appears to be a candidate for agreement from the perspective of Contractualist Common Ownership. The responsible stewardship defence of resource sovereignty is rejected. The collective self-determination defence, however, is shown to get something right. Parties to the original position would indeed accept a principle according to which resource rights must support political communities in the legitimate exercise of collective self-determination, because such self-determination promises to further individuals’ interests in freedom as non-domination. But the principle of collective self-determination appears to support merely a presumptive right of exclusive territorial jurisdiction over natural resources, rather than resource sovereignty. This presumptive right must be abnegated or moderated if it conflicts with basic needs satisfaction, or with the self-determination of other political communities.

Limited Territorial Jurisdiction over Natural Resources

2019 ◽  
pp. 128-156
Author(s):  
Megan Blomfield
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Basic Needs ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Territorial Jurisdiction ◽  
Collective Self

This chapter further explores and defends the conception of natural resource justice composed of the principle of collective self-determination and the (lexically prior) basic needs principle. It explains the lexical ordering of the principles and the nature and scope of the resource claims they legitimize. It then discusses how the two principles will work in tandem to support a system of limited territorial jurisdiction over natural resources, and several forms such limits can be predicted to take. A brief explanation of how this account might be integrated into a broader theory of justice concerning other morally significant goods is provided. In response to the objection that this conception of justice is really a form of sufficientarianism, the view is portrayed as a theory of relational egalitarianism for natural resources. A response is also given to the objection that the theory is problematically ideal in the sense that it lacks feasibility.

Contractualist Common Ownership and the Basic Needs Principle

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Megan Blomfield
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Basic Needs ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Equal Division ◽  
Common Ownership ◽  
The Common ◽  
Principles Of Justice

This chapter draws on Charles Beitz’s account of natural resource justice to defend a method of justification that can be used to develop the Common Ownership view. This method employs an original position device, familiar from contemporary social contract theory, and the resulting view is therefore termed ‘Contractualist Common Ownership’. This understanding of Common Ownership is motivated by arguing that it is an apt interpretation of Equal Original Claims. Two key objections to this approach are anticipated and addressed. Contractualist Common Ownership is then used to reconsider and reject the principle of equal division. It is argued that instead, the parties would first secure agreement on a basic needs principle. However, it is also argued that this sufficientarian principle would not be accepted in isolation; parties would seek agreement on further principles of justice for the assignment of rights to natural resources, beyond what is required for basic needs.

Are Collective Rights Anti-Human?

1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-282
Author(s):  
Peter Juviler
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Just Cause ◽  
Collective Rights ◽  
Collective Group ◽  
Diverse Communities ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Individual Human

This essay first establishes necessary distinctions among collective group and solidarity rights, so as to bring out the potentially explosive import of collective rights to ‘internal’ self-determination. There follow arguments to this effect against recognizing collective rights to ethnic self-determination. In the words of one strong critique of ‘internal’ self-determination, it ‘(1) hinders the self-determination of individuals; (2) it prevents the recognition of mutual needs and interests between people within existing political communities; and (3) it exacerbates international tensions by giving just cause to all nationalist claims to statehood.’ In short, this critique goes, claims of collective rights to ethnic self-determination are anti-human because a threat to individual human rights, anti-human threats to existing diverse communities, and anti-human threats to peace. Arguing against this viewpoint with the situation in the post-Soviet successor states particularly in mind, the essay closes with reflections on implications of its arguments for law and action.

Territorial Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Stilz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
International System ◽  
Core Values ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Political Units ◽  
Territorial States

This book offers a qualified defense of a territorial states system. It argues that three core values—occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination—are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all of the sovereignty rights states currently claim and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states’ sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people’s preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and facilitates its people’s collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought.

Self-Determination Through Autonomy or Independence? – On the Current and Future Position of New Caledonia

ICL Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-105
Author(s):  
Markku Suksi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
New Caledonia ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
European Court ◽  
Determination Process ◽  
The Right

Abstract New Caledonia is a colonial territory of France. Since the adoption of the Nouméa Accord in 1998, a period of transition towards the exercise of self-determination has been going on. New Caledonia is currently a strong autonomy, well entrenched in the legal order of France from 1999 on. The legislative powers have been distributed between the Congress of New Caledonia and the Parliament of France on the basis of a double enumeration of legislative powers, an arrangement that has given New Caledonia control over many material fields of self-determination. At the same time as this autonomy has been well embedded in the constitutional fabric of France. The Nouméa Accord was constitutionalized in the provisions of the Constitution of France and also in an Institutional Act. This normative framework created a multi-layered electorate that has presented several challenges to the autonomy arrangement and the procedure of self-determination, but the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee have resolved the issues regarding the right to vote in manners that take into account the local circumstances and the fact that the aim of the legislation is to facilitate the self-determination of the colonized people, the indigenous Kanak people. The self-determination process consists potentially of a series of referendums, the first of which was held in 2018 and the second one in 2020. In both referendums, those entitled to vote returned a No-vote to the question of ‘Do you want New Caledonia to attain full sovereignty and become independent?’ A third referendum is to be expected before October 2022, and if that one also results in a no to independence, a further process of negotiations starts, with the potential of a fourth referendum that will decide the mode of self-determination New Caledonia will opt for, independence or autonomy.

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