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It Takes a Village: Hillary Warms Up to Inuit Rights
Apr 1, 2010 – By Barry Zellen
Less than a year ago – on April 28, 2009 – a
delegation of Inuit leaders from Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Russia
presented the Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Arctic Sovereignty in
Tromsø, Norway, where the Arctic Council was meeting. This historic
declaration represented the Inuit response to their exclusion eleven months
earlier at the May 2008 Ilulissat Summit of top foreign policymakers among
the Arctic rim states, and reflects the formal Inuit response to the modern
state’s latest effort to reshape the destiny of Arctic indigenous
peoples in a top-heavy effort to determine ultimately where Arctic
sovereignty resides.
Tribal Sovereignty for Modern Times
Last year’s Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Arctic
Sovereignty updated Inuit policy on sovereignty for contemporary times,
responding not only to the pressures of the changing climate but to their
continued diplomatic exclusion from Arctic security and diplomatic affairs as
experienced at Ilulissat the year before. While members of the Arctic
Council, an international advisory body, the Inuit have long been denied a
seat at the table when it comes to military, strategic, and diplomatic
affairs, which have long been viewed as affairs of state. The Inuit
nonetheless aspire to shape policies in the Far North that affect issues
relating to military, security, and diplomatic issues, and during the Cold
War endeavored to denuclearize the Arctic basin and to help unify East and
West through northern displays of collaboration and cooperation.
The April 2009 Inuit declaration asserted that
“central to our rights as a people is the right to
self-determination,” which “is our right to freely determine our
political status, freely pursue our economic, social, cultural and linguistic
development, and freely dispose of our natural wealth and resources. States
are obligated to respect and promote the realization of our right to
self-determination.” Section two of the April 2009 Inuit declaration
addressed the “Evolving Nature of Sovereignty in the Arctic,” and
noted sovereignty “has often been used to refer to the absolute and
independent authority of a community or nation both internally and
externally” but that it remains a “contested concept, however,
and does not have a fixed meaning.” Further, the declaration noted,
“Old ideas of sovereignty are breaking down as different governance
models, such as the European Union, evolve,” where “sovereignties
overlap and are frequently divided within federations in creative ways to
recognize the right of peoples.”
The Inuit observed that in “exercising our right to
self-determination in the circumpolar Arctic, we continue to develop
innovative and creative jurisdictional arrangements that will appropriately
balance our rights and responsibilities as an indigenous people, the rights
and responsibilities we share with other peoples who live among us, and the
rights and responsibilities of states,” and that in “seeking to
exercise our rights in the Arctic, we continue to promote compromise and
harmony with and among our neighbors.” Even though the May 2008
Ilulissat declaration had pledged the Arctic rim states to “use
international mechanisms and international law to resolve sovereignty
disputes,” it “neglected to include Inuit in Arctic sovereignty
discussions in a manner comparable to Arctic Council
deliberations.”
The April 2009 Inuit declaration thus serves as a reminder
that the “inclusion of Inuit as active partners in all future
deliberations on Arctic sovereignty will benefit both the Inuit community and
the international community” – and that “extensive
involvement of Inuit in global, trans-national and indigenous politics
requires the building of new partnerships with states for the protection and
promotion of indigenous economies, cultures and traditions.” These
partnerships, the declaration contends, “must acknowledge that
industrial development of the natural resource wealth of the Arctic can
proceed only insofar as it enhances the economic and social well-being of
Inuit and safeguards our environmental security.” Anything less will be
rejected by the Inuit, and with their many settled land claims accords,
regional and territorial governments, and numerous mechanisms of
co-management and environmental regulation, proceeding without the full
support of the Inuit would be unwise. That’s why the Inuit have drawn a
line in the tundra, and are so vocally insisting that their exclusion from
the table at Ilulissat must now be redressed – so that the future
development of the Arctic is a truly joint effort, not just between the
Arctic states, but between the states and the Inuit as well.
The April 2009 Inuit declaration emerged from the first
Inuit Leaders’ Summit held on November 6–7, 2008, in Kuujjuaq,
Nunavik, in Northern Quebec, where they “gathered to address Arctic
sovereignty” and “expressed unity in our concerns over Arctic
sovereignty deliberations, examined the options for addressing these
concerns, and strongly committed to developing a formal declaration on Arctic
sovereignty.” In Kuujjuaq, the Inuit
leadership had noted with disappointment that the “2008 Ilulissat
declaration on Arctic sovereignty by ministers representing the five coastal
Arctic states did not go far enough in affirming the rights Inuit have gained
through international law, land claims and self-government processes.”
In many ways, their declaration was a direct response to the foreign
ministers of the Arctic rim states for the exclusion of the Inuit at
Ilulissat, and it counters this exclusion with a strong argument for a
central Inuit role in determining the fate of the Arctic. As the ICC observed
at this start of their effort in November 2008: “Sovereignty is a
complex issue. It has a variety of overlapping elements, anchored in
international law. But fundamentally it begins with the history and reality
of Inuit use and occupation of Arctic lands and waters; that use and
occupation is at the heart of any informed discussion of sovereignty in the
Arctic. Arctic nation states must respect the rights and roles of Inuit in
all international discussions and commitments dealing with the
Arctic.”
Care Tactics: Hillary to the Rescue
Fast forward eleven months since the Inuit re-asserted their
circumpolar sovereignty last April, and they’ve now received a strong
endorsement from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who on March
29th of this year attended a meeting in Ottawa of the same Arctic
rim states that came together in May 2008 at Ilulissat – Canada,
Denmark/Greenland, Norway and Russia – to continue their discussion of
environmental and economic issues related to the thawing Arctic. But instead
of re-affirming the sovereign primacy of the Arctic rim states as was done in
Ilulissat in 2008, Hillary instead surprised her host by scolding Ottawa for
its continued exclusion of not only the non-coastal Arctic states of Sweden
and Finland and sub-arctic Iceland, but also the non-state Inuit.
Diplomatically, this was as huge a win for the Inuit as it was an
embarrassment for our closest neighbor, coalition partner in the bloody war
on terror, and long-time ally in Ottawa.
Big, bold headlines hit the wires and quickly made their way
to print and to the web as news of Hillary’s undiplomatic rebuke
spread. Reuters correspondent David Ljunggren, in “Clinton
rebuke overshadows Canada’s Arctic meeting,” noted that Hillary
“delivered a rare public rebuke to close ally Canada on Monday,
criticizing it for excluding key nations from a meeting to discuss the
resource-rich Arctic. Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon gathered his
counterparts from Russia, Norway, the United States and Denmark for three
hours of talks on Monday on the grounds that they were the only nations with
Arctic coastlines. The decision prompted unhappiness in Sweden, Finland and
Iceland, who are also members of the eight-nation Arctic Council –
traditionally the body where most important decisions on the region are
taken.” In “Clinton decries exclusions from Arctic
meeting,” Associated Press reporter Rob Gillies reported that
“Clinton said she had been contacted by representatives of indigenous
groups who were disappointed they were not invited, according to prepared
remarks for Monday’s Arctic Coastal meeting. She also said that Sweden,
Finland and Iceland – the three Arctic states not represented –
had similar concerns. ‘Significant international discussions on Arctic
issues should include those who have legitimate interests in the region. And
I hope the Arctic will always showcase our ability to work together, not
create new divisions,’ Clinton said.” And in “Clinton
rebukes Canada at Arctic meeting,” Washington Post reporter
Mary Beth Sheridan observed, “It was supposed to be a meeting of polar
pals. But a high-level session on the dramatic changes in the Arctic turned
chilly Monday, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton rapped Canada for
leaving out several players.” As BBC News reported,
“Some concern has been expressed that the five coastal states at the
Canadian meeting were forming an ‘inner core’ at the expense of
other parties.” According to BBC, Hillary told her fellow
diplomats that, “We need all hands on deck because there is a huge
amount to do, and not much time to do it. What happens in the Arctic will
have broad consequences for the Earth and its climate. The melting of sea
ice, glaciers and permafrost will affect people and ecosystems around the
world.”
The Canadian Press reported “Clinton’s
Arctic comments cheer Inuit,” noting “Inuit groups are declaring
victory and Arctic experts are warning that Canada’s approach to the
North will have to change after remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton. ‘I can only express my support for her comments and her
views,’ said Duane Smith, head of the Canadian branch of the Inuit
Circumpolar Council. Whitney Lackenbauer, a University of Waterloo historian
and Arctic expert, agreed. ‘The clear message from Hillary Clinton is,
‘You need to recognize that this Arctic is not just the private sea of
the five coastal states.’” Canadian Press also cited Michael
Byers, a law professor from the University of British Columbia and author of
Who Owns the Arctic?: “Clinton is going to bat for indigenous
people. This will be celebrated by indigenous people across the North.”
Even Al Jazeera noted, in “Controversy over Arctic
conference,” that the five Arctic coastal states “have agreed to
work more closely to safeguard the region’s environment and resolve
disputes over territory. However, the meeting between Canada, Russia,
Denmark, Norway and the US on Monday was overshadowed by the exclusion of
three other countries with Arctic territories and representatives of
indigenous nations.”
The significance of Hillary’s controversial embrace of
the Inuit interest, and her public rebuke of America’s closest neighbor
and loyal coalition partner (whose losses in Afghanistan, on a proportional
basis, have greatly exceeded America’s own losses in the long war on
terror), was surreal in its prioritization of a sub-state indigenous minority
over an allied nation-state. But the dramatic, if unexpected nature, of her
defense of Inuit rights was a very public affirmation by America’s top
diplomat of the importance of the very multilateralism embraced by the Obama
administration, as articulated in America’s new Arctic policy, first
promulgated by President Bush in its final days but one that had an echo of
the Obama Doctrine woven into its text, one that respected all sovereign
components, not just high state but also local village and tribe as well. For
the Inuit, it was a welcome assertion of America’s respect for the
inherently tribal nature of the far northern frontier.
Seal of Disapproval
Ironically, America’s European allies, themselves a
diverse mosaic of cultures and languages that are truly kaleidoscopic in
nature, have been engaged in a festering Cold War with the Inuit over the
Inuit right to hunt, trap, and trade in marine mammal products as they have
done for millennia. This has resulted in a very odd diplomatic tension
between a sub-state tribe and the very European states whose own fur empires
led to the colonization of the Far North in centuries past, and which
introduced the Inuit to the globalizing economics of the fur trade. Once
proudly independent and with a subsistence economy perfectly aligned with the
unique Arctic landscape, the Inuit became part of a new, European-centered,
global economy that actively solicited their fur wealth, whether the muskrat,
sea otter or even the seal.
But today’s Europeans no longer have the same zeal for
thick marine mammal fur. Nor, does it seem, that the Europeans whose
ancestors expanded their fur empire into the Far North, feel any
responsibility for the economic or cultural wellbeing of the descendants of
the Inuit who joined their forefathers in these early globalizations efforts.
During February's meeting of G7 finance ministers in the Canadian Arctic,
Nunavut leaders generously hosted their international visitors with a taste
of northern cuisine, included a staple of their subsistence diet: seal meat.
But as Andrew Clark reported in The Guardian, “None of the
visiting ministers chose to attend a feast on Saturday night, laid on by the
local Inuit community, at which raw seal was on the menu. Canada's Jim
Flaherty was left to chow down on some seal meat alone.”
The refusal of the European G7 finance ministers to dine
with the Inuit, and their very undiplomatic decision to disrespect Inuit
hospitality in Nunavut's capital city by refusing to attend a feast held in
their honor by the Inuit, was certainly not Europe's best moment. The Inuit
may be few in number, but they control many local economic and political
levers, and their interests are now fully backed by Ottawa – their
partner in land claims, self-government, and northern development. Resolving
lingering tensions between Europe and the Inuit is a necessary step to ensure
the tranquility of the Far North, and the Inuit are demanding a seat at any
table where their future and the future of their homeland is being
negotiated. This was recognized by Hillary, and though she rebuked Ottawa,
the European states seem to be more worthy of her diplomatic tongue-lashing
– as Canada, more than any state, has welcomed its indigenous peoples
into a participatory political life with not only open hearts and minds, but
with a rare commitment to devolving governmental power to the people of the
North.
The Inuit, of course, want ever greater autonomy, and aspire
for a restoration of more and more levers of sovereignty, with some even
aspiring to formal independence as seen in Greenland, or as articulated in
the early 1990s by Alaska’s very own Charles Etok Edwardsen. In Arctic
Canada, the Inuit have largely been content with increasing domestic power,
under the sovereign umbrella of the Canadian Constitution. And so
Hillary’s rebuke may have been aimed at the wrong target. After all, it
was Ottawa that elected to hold the G7 finance meeting in Iqaluit this past
winter, hoping for a reconciliation between the Inuit and the
Europeans.
Ottawa’s efforts should be lauded, and not subjected
to diplomatic pot-shots from a nation whose own history is one where
indigenous peoples were ruthlessly exterminated by war, assimilated by
cultural conquest, and concentrated into destitute reserves, and which only
recently has sought to atone for its past misdeeds. Canada had never so
brutally assaulted its own indigenous peoples, and has gone much further than
the United States in its efforts to empower indigenous peoples –
recognizing the strategic importance of indigenous harmony twenty five years
ago when the Oka standoff was amicably settled, and a host of land claims
settlements, governmental innovations, and royal commissions sought to
redress the historic injustices in a holistic manner.
But even if mis-targeted at our friendly ally to the east,
Hillary’s intention, to show her support for the Inuit and her respect
for their central place in the emergent Arctic order, was to foster greater
inclusion, and to help reconcile the interests of north and south and restore
hope among the Inuit that the “West” still includes the North.
With Hillary now warmly embracing the Inuit point of view, and calling upon
the other nations along the Arctic coast to do the same, we can expect to see
increasing Inuit participation at future meetings on Arctic issues, and
decreasing exclusion of the indigenous perspective going forward.
While that will not necessarily restore greater sovereignty
to the Inuit, it will at least show that their interests and values do have a
place at the table, at least on Hillary’s watch. And that is a very big
deal indeed. Just as Vice President Biden appropriately dropped the F-bomb
for all the world to hear at the historic signing of Obamacare last month,
one could say the very same thing on the impact of Hillary’s remarks in
Ottawa last week. For the Inuit, this truly was – in the words of our
loose-lipped Vice President – a “big f***ing deal,”
indeed.
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