CPSA/ISA-Canada section on International Relations

C12(a) - Issues in Sovereignty

Date: May 31 | Time: 02:00pm to 03:30pm | Location: Classroom - CL 312 Room ID:15763

Chair/Président/Présidente : Leah Sarson (Dartmouth College)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Bryan Peeler (University of Manitoba)

Sovereignty Rising? The Westphalian Canadian State and the UNDRIP: Caleb Lauer (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: My paper analyzes how the Canadian government’s initial opposition to and later endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) can be understood in terms of competing notions of sovereignty. Situating my argument within the global governance literature dealing with challenges to conventional notions of sovereignty, I specifically address the critique made by Anishinaabe scholar Sheryl Lightfoot that if indigenous rights, such as those provided for by the UNDRIP, are to be made meaningful, the prevailing discourse in International Relations which privileges and presumes a “Westphalian system of state sovereignty” must be reimagined and remade in a way that makes possible a conceptualization of shared sovereignty between Indigenous Peoples and states. I argue that the story of Canada’s evolving relationship to the UNDRIP is, at root, a story of a problematic, tension-ridden, and contradictory conceptualization of sovereignty, a story that features reasons for hope for those desiring progress towards a realization of shared sovereignty, while at the same time features a stark reassertion of the territorial authority and integrity of the Canadian sovereign state. My paper also argues that Canada’s initial opposition to the transnational indigenous diplomacy that led to the successful creation of the UNDRIP is less telling in terms of the Westphalian sovereignty problématique than is the way Canada has come to endorse and abide the declaration.

Sovereignty and State Civil Disobedience: Antonio Franceschet (University of Calgary)
Abstract: In recent years, International Relations scholars have interpreted state defiance of international rules and laws as “civil disobedience”. At the same time, a more general revival of scholarship on the theory and practice of civil disobedience has occurred. Disagreement on whether and under what conditions state action is analogous to individual or non-state civil disobedience is complicated by ongoing disputes over what civil disobedience means, and how this mode of resistance matters in contemporary global politics. This paper asks what difference the principle of state sovereignty makes to how states undertake the role of a civil disobedient? This paper first critiques implicit assumptions about sovereignty found in existing studies of how state behaviour is analogous to civil disobedience. Although implicit, existing studies frame sovereignty as incidental or irrelevant to the capacity of states to defy international rules, when sovereignty itself is conditioned by such rules in the first place. Common usage of the analogy of states and individual (non-state) disobedience fails, then, to investigate how sovereignty is constrained by the political order that states are meant to contest. The paper then proposes the need to recast sovereignty not as a simple right (if not duty) to reject the applicability of laws and rules, but as an expression of fidelity to the rule of law, and the morally responsive, conscientious desire to make that law congruent with justice.

Sovereignty in the Third and Fourth World: Sabina Singh (University of Victoria)
Abstract: The topic of colonialism has a rich scholarly history. Many scholars, with some success, have declared themselves “postcolonial” or developed theories such as “neo-colonialism” to describe the current international structure. The question of colonial structures, however, still plays a major roll in current politics. This study looks specifically at expressions of sovereignty within the colonial framework. By comparing third and fourth world theories of sovereignty this study will ask if these concepts are still relevant today and what implications they may have for international politics. When Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and George Manuel of the Neskonlith nation met in the 1970s, they were both tasked with attempting to define sovereignty under a colonial system. What were the similarities and differences in these conceptions of sovereignty in the 1970s? What challenges in achieving sovereignty arose in each context? What did the Neskonlith learn from Tanzania about sovereignty and vice-versa? How are the non-aligned Third World theories of Julius Nyerere (Tanzania) different from George Manuel’s (Neskonlith) Fourth World? Are these concepts still relevant and how have they evolved? In comparing the divergent pathways to sovereignty in these two territories, I will link the past to the present specifically by exploring why the joint meetings remain relevant today. Looking closely at the World Council of Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations this study will explore the current day impacts of the unlikely intersection of leaders from two vastly different parts of the world.