Sustainable Development, Natural Resource Extraction, and the Arctic: The Road Ahead

Sustainable development has emerged as an integral nexus, linking together critically important global issues including environmental stewardship and economic growth. Understanding sustainable development demands a close analysis of evolving definitions, conceptual applications, and areas of convergence and divergence within international, regional, and domestic institutions. The import and impact of hard law and soft law must additionally be explored to understand the application of sustainable development to the Arctic. This Article suggests a three-tier framework to assist the multiplicity of stakeholders with diverse equities to navigate the socio-economic and legal hurdles and potential associated with Arctic development. First, a trend has emerged where soft law is effectively “hardening.” Second, the guiding role of domestic law must not be underestimated. The final tier proposes that multidisciplinary Arctic approaches are integral and yield efficiencies. Taken together, this framework provides guidance for novices and experts alike when considering Arctic sustainable development

Celebrating Economies of Change: Brave Visions for Inclusive Futures

This issue has been inspired by a path-breaking conference held by the Canadian Society for Ecologi-cal Economics (CANSEE), which took place this past May 2019 in Waterloo, Ontario. Entitled Engaging Economies of Change, the conference aimed to ex-pand existing research networks in the economy-environment nexus by building connections beyond the academy in order to meaningfully engage with the practicalities of building and implementing change. This issue captures the rich content shared during the event, as well as descriptions of the pro-cesses and efforts made to create a welcoming and respectful space where academics and community activists could build alliances and discuss common challenges. The conference organizers – all graduate students and activists themselves -- called this ‘building a brave space’.This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canad

Women and Gender: Useful Categories of Analysis in Environmental History

In 1990, Carolyn Merchant proposed, in a roundtable discussion published in The Journal of American History, that gender perspective be added to the conceptual frameworks in environmental history. 1 Her proposal was expanded by Melissa Leach and Cathy Green in the British journal Environment and History in 1997. 2 The ongoing need for broader and more thoughtful and analytic investigations into the powerful relationship between gender and the environment throughout history was confirmed in 2001 by Richard White and Vera Norwood in Environmental History, Retrospect and Prospect, a forum in the Pacific Historical Review. Both Norwood, in her provocative contribution on environmental history for the twenty-first century, and White, in Environmental History: Watching a Historical Field Mature, addressed the need for further work on gender. Environmental history, Norwood noted, is just beginning to integrate gender analyses into mainstream work. 3 That assessment was particularly striking coming, as it did, after Norwood described the kind of ongoing and damaging misperceptions concerning the role of diversity, including gender, within environmental history. White concurred with Norwood, observing that environmental history in the previous fifteen years had been far more explicitly linked to larger trends in the writing of history, but he also issued a clear warning about the current trends in including the role of gender: The danger ... is not that gendering will be ignored in environmental history but that it will become predictable-an endless rediscovery that humans have often made nature female. Gender has more work to do than that. 4 Indeed it does. In 1992, the index to Carolyn Merchant\u27s The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History included three subheadings under women. Women and the egalitarian ideal and women and the environment each had only a few entries. Most entries were listed under the third subheading, activists and theorists, comprising seventeen names. 5 Nine years later Elizabeth Blum compiled Linking American Women\u27s History and Environmental History, an online preliminary historiography revealing gaps as well as strengths in the field emerging at the intersection of these two relatively new fields of study. At that time Blum noted that, with the exception of some scholarly interest being diverted to environmental justice movements and ecofeminism, most environmental history has centered on elite male concerns; generally, women\u27s involvement tends to be ignored or marginalized.

A Retrospective Look at the Winding Paths to Legalizing Afro-Colombian Rights in Law 70 of 1993

August 2013 marked twenty years since the passing of Law 70, which legally recognizes the ethnic, territorial, and socioeconomic rights of black communities in Colombia. In the past two decades its implementation has been mixed at best, and the actual political and economic status of most Afro-Colombians remains grim. Yet this flawed law remains an important icon and political instrument of Afro-Colombian struggles. A retrospective look at the processes and peoples that led up to Law 70 may be useful in the context of ongoing Afro-Latin(o) struggles to obtain real and sustained cultural, political, and economic rights

Fate Control and Human Rights: The Policies and Practices of Local Governance in America's Arctic

The loss of territoriality over lands conveyed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act had adverse impacts for Alaskan tribal governance. Despite policy frameworks that emphasize the value of local governance at an international, regional, and statewide level, Alaskan tribes face unique obstacles to exercising their authority, with consequences for both human development and human rights. This Article examines how territoriality was lost and analyzes the four major effects of this loss on tribal governance. It then describes two distinct but complimentary strategies to rebuilding tribal governance authority that rely on both territorial and non-territorial authority.Ye

Tribal sovereign status: Conceptualizing its integration into the social work curriculum

This banded dissertation contains three related products: a conceptual article, a research article, and the development of an original social work course. Together the products conceptualize, research, and envision how accredited social work programs can integrate tribal sovereign status relevant theories and concepts into curriculum to prepare social workers to collaborate and work with Indigenous peoples and communities. The primary conceptual framework that informs the dissertation is decolonization theory. Decolonization entails a broad theoretical spectrum that includes both philosophical-oriented and action-effort approaches to combat the generational effects that colonization has inflected on Indigenous peoples (Gray, M., Coates, J., Yellow Bird, M., & Hetherington, T., 2013; Aquash, 2013; Mbembe, 2013; Gibson, 2007). An elder epistemological framework is also utilized whereas Indigenous elders are consulted as informers to the research findings and the dissertation work at-large (Christensen & Poupart, 2013). The first section of this banded dissertation is a conceptual article that focuses on the intersection of decolonization and the social work curriculum. Theoretical and action-efforts of the decolonization theoretical spectrum are examined. Early social work activities in the United States inflicted the dominant cultural values of an imperial or colonial nature on Indigenous Peoples (Gray, Coates, Yellow Bird, & Hetherington, 2013). These values were adapted into social welfare polices and social work standards of practice, and are often dissimilar to Indigenous cultural values. How ideologies of decolonization can be integrated into the social work curriculum, its learning spaces, and its assessment are conceptualized within the context of the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) - Education and Policy Accreditation Standards (EPAS) Competency 2 – Engage Diversity and Difference in Practice. The second section of this banded dissertation describes a qualitative study. In the exploratory study, 12 social workers with practice experience working with tribal communities were interviewed in order to identify indigenous-relevant content for social work curricula. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. Social work practice-oriented (i.e. historical trauma, cultural appropriation, and identity) and policy-oriented themes (i.e. tribal governance structure, historical policy and action, self-governance, and environmental justice) emerged from the investigation. Aligning with principles of elder epistemology, tribal elders were consulted and provided feedback about the study’s findings and the elders provided recommendations for the direction of further research. The third section of this banded dissertation is the design of a master of social work level course entitled: Indigenous Communities and Peoples: Effective Social Work Practice. The 5 curriculum content themes (Table 1) that emerged from the findings of the qualitative study outlined in section two of this banded dissertation are foundational and inform the course learning objectives. Social workers with practice experience working with tribal communities identified and inform indigenous-relevant, tribal sovereign status defining content, for social work curricula. The course is organized into 5 modules and includes both practice and policy-oriented topics. Consistent to the conceptual framework of the research study and the resulting course, decolonization ideologies and action-efforts and elder epistemology are primary course precepts

Climate Justice and Women's Rights: A Guide to Supporting Grassroots Women's Action

This Guide emerged from a "Summit on Women and Climate" in Bali, Indonesia, and aims to increase timely and appropriate funding for worldwide climate action initiatives led by women and their communities. The Guide is not a comprehensive resource on climate change or women's rights. Instead, it addresses an urgent need within the funding community and offers concrete, practical guidance that: Orients grantmakers to the importance of funding at the intersection of climate justice and women's rights.Draws lessons from specific examples of funding for women's climate change initiatives.Provides guidance on how funders can collaborate to direct timely and appropriate funding to women and their communities.Advocates for bringing women's voices into climate change policy discussions.Highlights the strong impact that small (less than $10,000) to medium-sized ($10,000-$50,000) grants can make in women-organized efforts to address climate change at the community level, across geographic boundaries and in global climate policy. Grassroots women's climate activism is becoming increasingly critical to women's collective and individual rights, freedom and survival

The Role of the State, Multinational Oil Companies, International Law & the International Community: Intersection of Human Rights & Environmental Degradation Climate change in the 21st Century caused by Traditional Extractive Practices, The Amazon Rainforest, Indigenous People and Universal Jurisdiction to Resolve the Accountability Issue

Local, national and international conventions that protect indigenous sovereignty and their territories, where many of the resources are extracted from by multinational corporations (MNCs) particularly oil, the number one commodity of the world and cause of climate change, continue to be jeopardized because of the lack of a clear international legal framework that can protect them and potentially hold multinationals accountable for their actions. These practices are causing not only environmental issues to the indigenous and surrounding communities, but climate change is in fact, the real human rights issue of the 21st century and it affects everyone. By using the case of Ecuador vs. Chevron, the Sarayaku, and the Yasunit ITT deal brought up by Rafael Correa, and some other brief examples in California, The Artic and Nigeria, I explore the circumstances under which the international community should intervene in domestic affairs, and what the best mechanism to address violations of human rights stemming from environmental degradation would be. The focus re-directs to the Yasuni ITT because first, this is the most biodiverse area in the world and while being open for oil exploration, it exemplifies that this and other crucial world’s sites must be protected, as they are critical for the equilibrium of the Earth; otherwise, global warming will continue to rise. I connect the role of the state, international law and oil multinationals overlapping with rights of nature and the rights of the indigenous from the Amazon rainforest. I propose that a global intervention response to such violations will be more effective than a domestic one. I demonstrate that law and processes will be more effective if they apply to MNCs as well as states, and provide that the best mechanism to address violations of human rights stemming from environmental degradation would be to apply the principle of universal jurisdiction to such violations, approaching economic advances that cause human rights violations due to environmental issues, as crimes against humanity. This work also fills a gap in the literature in which the relationship of indigenous people with the land and in relation to climate change has been overlooked, under-theorized or approached half-heartedly. States and multinationals must come to terms with the climate change reality and have to act signing an international environmental legally binding agreement to control it and for accountability purposes. The COP21 currently happening must be the year to have this agreement. My work calls for clean and renewable energy, new technologies and innovative sustainable business models and initiatives in the 21st century, away from traditional extractive practices

Tribal sovereign status: Conceptualizing its integration into the social work curriculum

This banded dissertation contains three related products: a conceptual article, a research article, and the development of an original social work course. Together the products conceptualize, research, and envision how accredited social work programs can integrate tribal sovereign status relevant theories and concepts into curriculum to prepare social workers to collaborate and work with Indigenous peoples and communities. The primary conceptual framework that informs the dissertation is decolonization theory. Decolonization entails a broad theoretical spectrum that includes both philosophical-oriented and action-effort approaches to combat the generational effects that colonization has inflected on Indigenous peoples (Gray, M., Coates, J., Yellow Bird, M., & Hetherington, T., 2013; Aquash, 2013; Mbembe, 2013; Gibson, 2007). An elder epistemological framework is also utilized whereas Indigenous elders are consulted as informers to the research findings and the dissertation work at-large (Christensen & Poupart, 2013). The first section of this banded dissertation is a conceptual article that focuses on the intersection of decolonization and the social work curriculum. Theoretical and action-efforts of the decolonization theoretical spectrum are examined. Early social work activities in the United States inflicted the dominant cultural values of an imperial or colonial nature on Indigenous Peoples (Gray, Coates, Yellow Bird, & Hetherington, 2013). These values were adapted into social welfare polices and social work standards of practice, and are often dissimilar to Indigenous cultural values. How ideologies of decolonization can be integrated into the social work curriculum, its learning spaces, and its assessment are conceptualized within the context of the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) - Education and Policy Accreditation Standards (EPAS) Competency 2 – Engage Diversity and Difference in Practice. The second section of this banded dissertation describes a qualitative study. In the exploratory study, 12 social workers with practice experience working with tribal communities were interviewed in order to identify indigenous-relevant content for social work curricula. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. Social work practice-oriented (i.e. historical trauma, cultural appropriation, and identity) and policy-oriented themes (i.e. tribal governance structure, historical policy and action, self-governance, and environmental justice) emerged from the investigation. Aligning with principles of elder epistemology, tribal elders were consulted and provided feedback about the study’s findings and the elders provided recommendations for the direction of further research. The third section of this banded dissertation is the design of a master of social work level course entitled: Indigenous Communities and Peoples: Effective Social Work Practice. The 5 curriculum content themes (Table 1) that emerged from the findings of the qualitative study outlined in section two of this banded dissertation are foundational and inform the course learning objectives. Social workers with practice experience working with tribal communities identified and inform indigenous-relevant, tribal sovereign status defining content, for social work curricula. The course is organized into 5 modules and includes both practice and policy-oriented topics. Consistent to the conceptual framework of the research study and the resulting course, decolonization ideologies and action-efforts and elder epistemology are primary course precepts