Re: Tobacco/Eagle Feather---NEED HELP!

["Stuart Lawrence" <stuartwl@xxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>

b)That the existence or non-existence of any nation is not in any way
dependent upon recognition or non-recognition by other recognized
nations (particularly those such as Canada or the U.S. that have
acquired and built material interests in denying the existence and
legitimacy-and derivative rights of independence, self-determination and
sovereignty-of First Nations and/or other nations; the existence,
legitimacy-and derivative rights-of all nations are a matter of "facts
on the ground" and international law as were it not so, any nation could
summarily extinguish another nation (genocide) through simple
non-recognition and applied power disparities;

c)Of the 193 nations in the U.N. over 100 have been recognized as
nations only since 1945 and out of the dissolution of the former USSR,
for example, fifteen new nations have been recognized by Canada and the
U.S.; these new nations did not "become" nations since the dissolution
of the U.S.S.R , rather they simply became recognized as nations as the
essential elements and requisites of their nationhood existed long
before their recognition as nations by other nations (prior to their
recognition as nations, they were summarily declared to be "national
minorities" or "dependent captive quasi-nations" with
"quasi-sovereignty" and having the same formal status as First Nations
have been summarily declared to have in Canada and the U.S.);

>>>>

Jim,

I've tried to give your statement a careful reading. From the above
paragraphs, it's unclear to me how you distinguish (good) "facts on the
ground" from (bad) "applied power disparities." Among the over 100 states in
the U.N. that have been recognized since 1945 is Israel, whose devotion to
"facts on the ground" as a basis for legitimacy is notorious. Perhaps you
mean some other kind of "facts" than those usually connoted by this phrase.
Would you include Israel among the "nations" that pre-existed their U.N.
recognition? If not, what "essential elements and requisites of nationhood"
did it lack? It certainly didn't lack a history of summary relegation to
"national minority" status, genocide, or denial of full sovereign statehood.

A second question -- you never use the word "state," but in the discourse of
international law, some phrase has to stand in for that category. When you
say "sovereign nation" do you mean it to be synonymous with "state"? It's
confusing to read about "new nations" that always were nations but had to be
recognized as nations (after the rearrangement of power disparities) in
order to have the international status of nations. One definition of a state
that scholars might agree on is "an entity with geographic limits and
constituent population, holding a monopoly on the legitimate use of force
within its boundaries or externally on its behalf." Note the absence of
nationality, "essential elements and requisites of nationhood" and the like
from the definition. Clearly implicit in this definition is the necessity
for "facts on the ground" and, indeed "applied power disparities": the
disparity between the state's access to legitimate force and that of other
entities, internal or external. On the other hand, the weak point in this
definition is the vagueness of the term "legitimate," which leaves
unresolved the question of "legitimate to whom -- the constituent population
or the international system of states?"

I raise these points in full support of your advocacy of the Blackfoot
Nation, but I invite you to consider what may be problematic about asserting
"requisites of nationhood" as if they were the same as "requisites of
statehood" in terms of conventional international law discourse, which
ultimately serves to legitimate the historic European
nation-state/imperialist remaking of the world. The occasions when
international law has done otherwise have resulted from conjunctures where
"applied power disparities" dictated it do so.

Stuart



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