Safeguarding Settler Colonialism in Geneva: Canada, Indigenous Rights, and ilo Convention No. 107 on the Protection and Integration of Indigenous Peoples (1957)

2021 ◽  
pp. e20200007
Author(s):  
David Meren
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoë Laidlaw

Rooted in the extraordinary archive of Quaker physician and humanitarian activist, Dr Thomas Hodgkin, this book explores the efforts of the Aborigines' Protection Society to expose Britain's hypocrisy and imperial crimes in the mid-nineteenth century. Hodgkin's correspondents stretched from Liberia to Lesotho, New Zealand to Texas, Jamaica to Ontario, and Bombay to South Australia; they included scientists, philanthropists, missionaries, systematic colonizers, politicians and indigenous peoples themselves. Debating the best way to protect and advance indigenous rights in an era of burgeoning settler colonialism, they looked back to the lessons and limitations of anti-slavery, lamented the imperial government's disavowal of responsibility for settler colonies, and laid out elaborate (and patronizing) plans for indigenous 'civilization'. Protecting the Empire's Humanity reminds us of the complexity, contradictions and capacious nature of British colonialism and metropolitan 'humanitarianism', illuminating the broad canvas of empire through a distinctive set of British and Indigenous campaigners.


2021 ◽  
pp. 088541222110266
Author(s):  
Michael Hibbard

Interest in Indigenous planning has blossomed in recent years, particularly as it relates to the Indigenous response to settler colonialism. Driven by land and resource hunger, settler states strove to extinguish Indigenous land rights and ultimately to destroy Indigenous cultures. However, Indigenous peoples have persisted. This article draws on the literature to examine the resistance of Indigenous peoples to settler colonialism, their resilience, and the resurgence of Indigenous planning as a vehicle for Indigenous peoples to determine their own fate and to enact their own conceptions of self-determination and self-governance.


Author(s):  
BARBARA ARNEIL

Using two recently published folios by Jeremy Bentham, I draw out a fundamental but little-analyzed connection between pauperism and both domestic and settler colonialism in opposition to imperialism in his thought. The core theoretical contribution of this article is to draw a distinction between a colonial, internal, and productive form of power that claims to improve people and land from within, which Bentham defends, and an imperial, external, and repressive form of power that dominates or rules over people from above and afar, that he rejects. Inherent in colonialism and the power unleashed by it are specific and profoundly negative implications in practice for the poor and disabled of Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries subject to domestic colonialism and indigenous peoples subject to settler colonialism from first contact until today. I conclude Bentham is best understood as a pro-colonialist and anti-imperialist thinker.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 735-754
Author(s):  
Barbara Arneil

AbstractIn this address, I examine the lexical, geographic, temporal and philosophical origins of two key concepts in modern political thought: colonies and statistics. Beginning with the Latin word colonia, I argue that the modern ideology of settler colonialism is anchored in the claim of “improvement” of both people and land via agrarian labour in John Locke's labour theory of property in seventeenth-century America, through which he sought to provide an ideological justification for both the assimilation and dispossession of Indigenous peoples. This same ideology of colonialism was turned inward a century later by Sir John Sinclair to justify domestic colonies on “waste” land in Scotland—specifically Caithness (the county within which my own grandparents were tenant farmers). Domestic colonialism understood as “improvement” of people (the “idle” poor and mentally ill and disabled) through engagement in agrarian labour on waste land inside explicitly named colonies within the borders of one's own country was first championed not only by Sinclair but also his famous correspondent, Jeremy Bentham, in England. Sinclair simultaneously coined the word statistics and was the first to use it in the English language. He defined it as the scientific gathering of mass survey data to shape state policies. Bentham embraced statistics as well. In both cases, statistics were developed and deployed to support their domestic colony schemes by creating a benchmark and roadmap for the improvement of people and land as well as a tool to measure the colony's capacity to achieve both over time. I conclude that settler colonialism along with the intertwined origins of domestic colonies and statistics have important implications for the study of political science in Canada, the history of colonialism as distinct from imperialism in modern political thought and the role played by intersecting colonialisms in the Canadian polity.


Author(s):  
J. ANTHONY VANDUZER ◽  
MELANIE MALLET

Abstract Canadian commitments under trade and investment treaties have been an ongoing concern for Indigenous peoples. The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) is the first Canadian treaty to include a general exception for measures that a party state “deems necessary to fulfill its legal obligations to [I]ndigenous peoples.” This exception is likely to afford Canada broad, but not unlimited, discretion to determine what its legal obligations to Indigenous peoples require. There is a residual risk that Canada’s reliance on the exception could be challenged through the CUSMA dispute settlement process. A CUSMA panel would not have the expertise necessary to decide inevitably complex questions related to what Canada’s legal obligations to Indigenous peoples require. While state-to-state cases under the North American Free Trade Agreement have been rare, a CUSMA panel adjudication regarding the Indigenous general exception risks damaging consequences for Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Almut Schilling-Vacaflor ◽  
Riccarda Flemmer

Based on rich empirical data from Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru – the three Latin American countries where the implementation of prior consultation processes is most advanced – we present a typology of indigenous peoples’ agency surrounding prior consultation processes and the principle of free, prior and informed consent (fpic). The typology distinguishes between indigenous actors (1) mobilising for a strong legal interpretation of fpic, (2) mobilising for meaningful and influential fpic processes, (3) mobilising against prior consultation processes, and (4) blockading prior consultation processes for discussing broader grievances. We identify the most prominent indigenous strategies related to those four types, based on emblematic cases. Finally, we critically discuss the inherent shortcomings of the consultation approach as a model for indigenous participation in public decision-making and discuss the broader implications of our findings with regard to indigenous rights and natural resource governance.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Kaur Dhamoon

AbstractIn settler societies like Canada, United States, and Australia, the bourgeoning discourse that frames colonial violence against Indigenous people as genocide has been controversial, specifically because there is much debate about the meaning and applicability of genocide. Through an analysis of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, this paper analyzes what is revealed about settler colonialism in the nexus of difficult knowledge, curatorial decisions, and political debates about the label of genocide. I specifically examine competing definitions of genocide, the primacy of the Holocaust, the regulatory role of the settler state, and the limits of a human rights framework. My argument is that genocide debates related to Indigenous experiences operationalize a range of governing techniques that extend settler colonialism, even as Indigenous peoples confront existing hegemonies. These techniques include: interpretative denial; promoting an Oppression Olympics and a politics of distancing; regulating difference through state-based recognition and interference; and depoliticizing claims that overshadow continuing practices of assimilation, extermination, criminalization, containment, and forced movement of Indigenous peoples. By pinpointing these techniques, this paper seeks to build on Indigenous critiques of colonialism, challenge settler national narratives of peaceful and lawful origins, and foster ways to build more just relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.


Polar Record ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naohiro Nakamura

ABSTRACTThis commentary reviews Maruyama's article ‘Japan's post-war Ainu policy: why the Japanese Government has not recognised Ainu indigenous rights?’ (Maruyama 2013a), published in this journal. Maruyama criticises the government for its reluctance to enact a new Ainu law to guarantee indigenous rights, even after Japan's ratification of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). However, in actuality, the government is searching for the foundation of new Ainu policies in the existing legal frameworks and trying to guarantee some elements of indigenous rights. Japan's case suggests the possibility of realising indigenous rights without the enactment of a specific law.


Author(s):  
Alex Latta

States’ increasing recognition of Indigenous rights in the realm of natural resources has led to a variety of co-management arrangements and other forms of melded authority, evolving over time into increasingly complex governance relationships. This article takes up such relationships within the analytical frame of multilevel governance, seeking lessons from the experiences of Indigenous involvement in water policy in Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT). It examines the way that effective collaboration in resource governance can emerge within the space of tension between evolving Indigenous rights regimes and the continued sovereignty of the state. At the same time, the analysis raises questions about whether multilevel governance can contribute to meaningful decolonization of relationships between settler states and Indigenous Peoples.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 133 ◽  
Author(s):  
R Yando Zakaria

Abstract: Arizona (2015b) reported that in the last mid-2015, there were lots of local regulation products intended as instruments to recognize the rights of indigenous people. Eventhough 40% of these products contain arrangements of the area, lands and communal forests, in reality, total area that have been effectively possessed by local communities were insignificant. According to Arizona (2015a), this condition occurred because the advocacy agenda trapped by the complexity of the diversity of the subjects and objects of the indigenous rights to be recognized and protected. This article was not about to argue that conclusion. However, this paper believes that the trap of complexity and diversity of the subjects and objects of the recognition of indigenous rights was enabled by three factors. First, the stakeholders within those complexity of definition came from generic concepts; second, failed to approach subjects and objects of the rights as a socio-antrophology reality at field level; and third, this problem was worsen by the stakeholders that barely have a proven instrument in finding sociological-anthropological reality. This article aims to fill those gaps. Keywords : Strategy, Recognition, Indigenous Peoples, socio-anthropologicalIntisari: Arizona (2015b) melaporkan bahwa tengah tahun 2015 lalu ada banyak produk hukum daerah yang dimakudkan sebagai instrument hukum pengakuan hak-hak masyarakat adat. Namun, meski 40% produk hukum daerah itu berisi pengaturan tentang wilayah, tanah dan hutan adat, di tingkat lapangan, total luas yang telah benar-benar efektif dikuasi masyarakat adat relatif sangat sedikit. Menurut Arizona (2015a), hal itu terjadi, antara lain, agenda advokasi terjebak oleh kerumitan keragaman subyek dan obyek hak-hak adat yang akan diakui dan dilindungi. Tulisan ini tak hendak membantah kesimpulan itu. Namun, tulisan ini percaya bahwa jebakan kerumitan keragaman subyek dan obyek pengakuan hak-hak masyarakat adat itu dimungkinkan oleh tiga hal. Pertama, para-pihak terjebak dengan perdebatan definisi dari beberapa konsep yang memang bersifat generik; kedua, alpa mendekati subyek dan obyek hak itu sebagai realitas sosio-antropologis di tingkat lapangan; dan ketiga, masalah ini diperumit oleh para-pihak nyaris tidak memiliki instrument yang teruji dalam menemukan realitas sosiologis-antropologi dimaskud. Tulisan ini disusun untuk mengisi kekosongan-kekosongan itu. Kata Kunci: Strategi, Pengakuan, Masyarakat Hukum Adat, sosio-antropologis


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