This chapter explores how the conceptual shift from ‘tribes’ to ‘ethnic groups’ contributed to the dismantling of the standard of civilisation. Whereas the binary distinction between civilised nations and primitive tribes reinforced the imperial hierarchy between European and non-European peoples, the concept of ethnicity is characterised by a cultural relativism that acknowledges the formal equality of all peoples. The chapter also shows how these conceptual changes enabled the reimagining of the international order as an ‘anarchical’ system populated by sovereign nation-states: at the very moment that anthropologists were moving away from colonial notions of ‘primitive society’ and ‘ordered anarchy’, IR theorists were adopting this vocabulary to conceptualise their own object. In this way, IR effectively accumulated the functions of colonial anthropology as the scientific vehicle for the study of the modern state’s primitive ‘other’. The chapter wraps up with a discussion of indigenous rights and their relationship to minority rights.

As a result of anthropogenic climate change, Inuit in the Arctic and island inhabitants in the Pacific Ocean both experience interrelated changes in their maritime environments. Global warming causes Arctic ice to melt, which leads to rising sea levels. As a result, local inhabitants in both regions experience the disappearance of their space (land and ice), paired with the arrival of new stakeholders with a diverse range of interests in the areas. As the inhabitants of the regions most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, Inuit and Pacific Islanders have engaged in counter-mapping and counter-narrating their space that colonial powers have previously conceptualized as isolated, remote, and peripheral. In contrast, the maps of Inuit Nunangat and the Blue Pacific illustrate and tell the stories of transnational spaces that have been collectively shared and used since time immemorial. These counter-mapping and counter-narrative approaches shape a new perception of the regions. This chapter contributes to conceptual development of environmental violence by discussing case studies of counter-mapping and counter-narration in the Arctic and the Pacific Ocean – as locals’ responses to experiences of structural and cultural violence to overcome their vulnerability, challenge power differentials, and satisfy their human needs.

In several Latin American countries, the state has to consult impacted Indigenous communities before approving new hydrocarbon and mining development, in accordance with regulations that govern these “prior consultation” processes. However, when navigated by extractivist states, these formal norms have blocked the very participation they were intended to encourage and have facilitated state disregard of both Indigenous territorial rights and the environmental destruction caused by large-scale development. These unanticipated outcomes stem from the measures the state must take to determine whether a hydrocarbon or mining project directly impacts an Indigenous community and therefore requires prior consultation. To make this determination, the state must define lands to which Indigenous communities hold rights, and the area impacted by the proposed development. State agencies that are eager to approve new extraction have overlooked – and in some cases actively dismissed – both the impacts of mining and hydrocarbons, and the geographical reach of Indigenous authority, in contexts in which communities claim, but lack title to damaged lands. This chapter demonstrates how prior consultation has encouraged the state to overlook, and even actively deny, Indigenous territorial rights and environmental impacts of extraction through analysis of three important Indigenous mining and hydrocarbon conflicts in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru.

By the late twentieth century, changing social, economic, and political conditions along with new scientific insights and trends in ethics and philosophy presented challenges not fully addressed by utilitarian and preservationist conservation. Indigenous rights activists, advocates for animal rights and the rights of nature, ecofeminists, scholars in the social sciences and humanities, legal experts, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations, national governments, and international development agencies offered diverse perspectives and agendas. Many disputed the idea that people are not part of nature, while others suggested that Indigenous peoples should be considered guardians of nature. Some promoted sustainable development along with attention to the social, political, and cultural consequences of conservation, particularly for the survival of threatened cultures and marginalized groups that have often been displaced by reserves. These developments led to the emergence of a stewardship approach to conservation that sustains complex ecosystems characterized by ecological and cultural diversity.

Part 1 of the book concludes by considering the paradoxical effects of two World Wars, at once harnessing an unprecedentedly vast emotional and material reservoir in the service of a common cause while at the same time ushering in a new era of ‘internationalism’ that would ultimately strip the British world-system of its effectiveness and fundamental rationale. Reformers in the interwar years sought to breathe new life into imperial Britishness ‘with a small “b”’ (in the words of Australia’s Keith Hancock) alluding to a more inclusive concept embracing a ‘diverse family of many kindreds and languages’ . By tracing interwar developments across three key interfaces - political thought, economic cooperation, and Indigenous rights advocacy - the shortcomings of this aspirational new Commonwealth are laid bare. Such was the long ascendancy of race in the hierarchy of Greater Britain that it could not easily be cast to one side.

This chapter offers an assessment of judicial fragmentation in international human rights law. The first part of the chapter presents a comparative analysis of the case-law of the three regional systems and the UN Human Rights Committee on rights that are the highly susceptible to trigger fragmentation, either for the relevance of religious, cultural and political concerns or for the vagueness of some terms in the norms’ provisions that could possibly allow very different interpretations. As this analysis shows a substantial convergence or absence of fragmentation, the second part of the chapter focuses on the detailed analysis of the few cases of judicial fragmentation identified, exploring their features in depth. They include case-law on freedom to wear religious attire, indigenous rights and the right to marry for same-sex couples.

The IPCC has begun to acknowledge, albeit slowly, the importance of Indigenous knowledge (IK) systems in contributing to understandings of climate change and effective climate action. Yet Indigenous Peoples (IPs) and IK systems remain largely excluded and marginalised from the IPCC global assessment reports. IPCC scientists and leaders have a unique and specific obligation to IK systems that does not extend to other knowledge systems. IK is the knowledge of rights holders and therefore acknowledging and respecting the self-determination of IPs over their knowledge – including how it is used, interpreted, and synthesised – is imperative. There are examples of IPs organising themselves in other international spaces that could inform how the IPCC can approach a stronger, more durable engagement with IPs. Perhaps the ultimate challenge for the IPCC is that when bringing IK systems together with other knowledge systems, the framing of evidence must reflect the diversity of these distinct and discrete ways of knowing. Examples from the lived experience of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in engaging with the IPCC demonstrate diverse channels for engagement, yet significant limitations persist.

Since the 1970s, Indigenous activists have fought for the recognition of Indigenous rights both nationally and internationally, a fight that arguably culminated in the passage of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People in 2007. Despite this victory, however, state actors continue to violate Indigenous rights, a violation that this chapter argues stems from the disaggregation of Indigenous rights from Indigenous law. In other words, Indigenous peoples residing within the borders of settler-colonial nation states, including the United States and Canada, are recognised as rights-bearing individuals and collectives, but these states still refuse to recognise the existence of independent, extra-colonial Indigenous legal systems. This phenomenon is a particular concern of contemporary Indigenous writers, including Michi Saagig Anishinaabe writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, whose poem “jiibay or aandizooke” demonstrates how settler legal systems that operate without regard for Indigenous law suppress the latter. Simpson’s work demonstrates why Indigenous rights and law must be recognised together.

The protection and promotion of human rights and democracy in Latin America, a region historically beset by civil strife, military actions, and foreign intervention, is a difficult task. Before World War II, human rights and democracy promotion were not factors in U.S.–Latin American relations (or, in fact, international relations in general). When the United States or regional governments invoked concerns about human rights or democracy during the Cold War, they did so based on narrow security interests rather than any serious commitment to human rights or democracy. However, there has been a renewed commitment to human rights and democracy in the twenty-first century. This chapter addresses human rights and democracy promotion in the context of the construction of norms and agreements by U.S. and Latin American governments.

This chapter explores the law and politics of the rights of nature, tracing the global process whereby ideals embraced by social movements travel through different continents. The chapter begins with the Ecuadorian and Bolivian experiences, where the rights of nature are part of a comprehensive approach that sustains the whole environmental system. It then considers narrower legislative developments in New Zealand and jurisprudence in Colombia and India endowing legal personhood to specific natural entities. That is to say, nature as a subject of rights may include the whole system of life, only specific entities such as rivers or forests, entitlement to represent nature before courts, the establishment of protected areas and so on. This chapter explores the history, theory and policy implications of the differential construction of such rights through dividing their development into four waves with differing epistemological and political rationalities. In so doing, this chapter unveils the tensions and contradictions inherent to the inclusion of the rights of nature within Western legality.

This chapter first provides a brief historical overview of the international indigenous rights movement. It then discusses the definitions of “indigenous peoples”. It also analyzes the content of “indigenous rights,” focusing on the issues of right to self-determination and economic, social and cultural rights, followed by an examination of the role of the UN and indigenous NGOs in protecting and promoting indigenous rights.

Based on four consecutive international meetings of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the author describes her experiences negotiating with governments in her capacity as Co-Chair of the International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change. She provides an insider view from an Indigenous perspective of the establishment of the Paris Agreement and the struggle to ensure its effective impementation, including official recognition of the importance of traditional knowledge for Indigenous resilience in the face of climate change.