The minority claims made by the various minority movements that emerged in the 1950s coalesced in separate state movements. Separate states claims were made by minority communities in all three major regions and these claims were championed by their political elites who strategically occupied seats in the regional houses of assembly, starting in 1953. Niger Delta elites formed provisional alliance, supressing local disputes and differences, in order to keep their claim for a separate Mid-West state alive in the constitutional reform process. Their efforts succeeded in halting the final constitutional conference, which was to be held in London in 1957. The push for separate states was strong enough to threaten the decolonization process altogether, and the British government decided to establish a Minorities Commission to address and resolve these claims prior to formal independence.

This chapter brings together the threads of Chapters 8 and 9 to advance an alternative theoretical foundation for international organizations. First, it explains why we should understand the state as an artificial rather than as a natural construct, even for the purposes of international law. It traces states’ emergence back to a national community’s capacity for self-description through socially grounded rules of transformative re-description. Doing so, this chapter unveils the inherent openness of international law to admitting any other institutions that can also be traced back to this capacity. Thus, it recasts the state as just one institution among a family of such entities. All these entities, including international organizations, are equally admissible by default in international law without the need for any legislative intervention to that effect.

Indigenous Knowledges, and its evolution across pre- and post-colonial Australia, provide a demonstrated understanding and application of practices beyond One Health. Despite being most impacted by the failures of adopting interdisciplinary One Health approaches, Indigenous Knowledges provide critical methodologies and governance structures to implement and understand the relationship between people, animals, and Country. This chapter explores methods to reconceptualise and reorientate One Health understanding within Australia by aspiring to pre-colonial Indigenous ways of being and doing. Importantly, it also draws upon the post-colonial involvement and learnings of Indigenous peoples in Australia, integrating through self-determination or forced into modern economies and society.

William E. Hartmann and Joseph P. Gone use insights from Beatrice Medicine and Vine Deloria Jr., two luminaries in understanding how anthropology might better serve Indigenous peoples, as an evaluative framework to review five recent ethnographies on psychosocial well-being among Native Americans and three areas of Indigenous scholarship.Hartmann and Gone observe commonalities across areas of Indigenous scholarship and variation among ethnographic works in their degrees of theoretical abstraction, affordances for community control, and attention to relationality in knowledge production. Recommendations related to shifting the ethnographic gaze away from Indigenous peoples toward structures of power that constrain Indigenous self-determination are made in hopes of fostering more reciprocal relations between psychological anthropology and Native American peoples.

In the context of the new Arctic policies of the EU, it is of importance to bring to the fore elements of the long-standing histories that connect the Arctic and Europe, as those histories may help us to understand challenges of today. With that background, the aim of this chapter is to shed further light on the term ‘Eurarctic’, primarily being limited, however, to a focus on the colonial history of Greenland as well as present EU– Greenland relations. The history of the Nordic/Arctic to which the history of Greenland is anchored, is long, complex, and at times controversial, so the intention is to modestly take a bird’s-eye view and focus on some of the most significant aspects.

This chapter traces the rise of a market-critical vision of human rights in the solidarity movement with Central America. From 1977 onward, solidarity activists (including New Leftists, liberationist Christians, advocates connected to Social Democracy, and radical humanitarians) supported the revolutionary struggles in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Before 1979, solidarity activists and emissaries from the Sandinista guerrilla employed the politics of emergency to vilify the regimes of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and Carlos Humberto Romero in El Salvador. After their overthrow in 1979, solidarity activists traded the politics of emergency for a politics of revolution. Activists came to believe that building social justice in Central America necessitated revolutionary state building. Market-critical human rights served solidarity activists to defend the Salvadoran guerrilla and the Sandinistas, even as they were accused of violating the rights of ethnic and political minorities. Market-critical activists refused to see the politics of revolution as a choice between morality and social justice; rather, they saw revolutionary social justice as the precondition for a moral society.

The human being is freely ‘self-determined’ rather than determined through some external authority (whether theological or teleological). This dichotomy conveniently expresses the usual understanding of modern political thought’s divergence from preceding tradition. By comparison, pre-modernity is teleological, anthropomorphic, realist; in a word, naïve – with its substantively rational nature, dictating essential ends to which we are subject. These received truths are past due for a re-examination. Just how naïve or dogmatic was the Greek understanding of freedom and nature? In this chapter, I argue that Plato’s view of man as naturally political is more complex and multivalent than our historical categorizations allow. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which, for him, politics does indeed depend upon a natural model. That model, however, is the Idea of the Good. And here, where Plato seems furthest from us, lies his greatest challenge to contemporary understandings of nature and freedom.

A central feature of the international legal system is that States are the predominant actors within the system and possess international legal personality. States are able to enter into legal relations with each other by way of treaties, possess certain international legal rights as bestowed under international law, and are capable of enforcing those legal rights in international litigation or of being the subject of a claim if they are derelict in meeting their international legal obligations. This raises two important issues. First, how are 'States' characterised and recognised under international law? Second, are States the only international actors that possess international legal personality? This chapter first consides the characteristics of statehood and the legal tests for recognition of a State. Next, the political and legal dimensions of recognition of a State are considered. This is followed by a focus on the international legal personality of non-State actors, including international organisations, individuals and transnational corporations. Finally, the related issues of peoples and their right to self-determination, and secession are considered.

This chapter explores political rights under international human rights law. It covers the right to self-determination, freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of association and assembly, electoral rights, and the right to participate in public affairs. The chapter examines the legal frameworks and standards for protecting these rights, the obligations of states to ensure their effective exercise, and the role of international bodies in monitoring and enforcing compliance. It also highlights the challenges in promoting political rights in different political and cultural contexts and the importance of fostering inclusive and participatory governance.

Tribes operated governments since time out of mind. Tribes developed institutions to manage their lands, people, and resources. While European arrival brought many hardships, tribes adapted, but eventually, tribes were forced onto reservations. Tribes endured attempts to exterminate their existence as distinct governments and cultures. Despite fifty years of the federal government’s tribal self-determination policy, tribes remain subject to excessive federal constraints on their sovereignty. Hence, tribes continue to struggle with crime and poverty. Tribes need greater autonomy to address the problems in their communities, and this requires treating tribes as nations again.

When tribes are allowed to operate as governments, states will push back because states fear tribal competition. In particular, states are concerned tribes will offer lower tax rates and other legal incentives to attract businesses to their land. This is a misguided concern. States already craft numerous exceptions to their laws, often designed specifically for their favorite corporations; plus, the source of state power over tribes is lacking. Apart from this, tribal development benefits states. New jobs in Indian country often employ non-Indians who purchase goods and pay taxes off reservation. Thus, tribal sovereignty also serves as a shield against state protectionism and promotes economic opportunities that benefit everyone.

Tribes struggle with many socioeconomic problems, including poverty and crime. Though the United States claims to support tribal self-determination, tribes remain subject to unique, federally imposed constraints on their sovereignty. This book argues removing the federal limitations on tribal sovereignty is the key to improving life in Indian country.