CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Kleiva, Kayleigh Mary |
|---|---|
| Title | Extractive Industries, Environmental Racism, and Indigenous Rights in the Americas |
| Summary | The present thesis sought out to research how and to what extent states protect indigenous rights in the United States, Canada and the Inter American System of Human Rights where extractive industries are involved. These three jurisdictions were selected for belonging to the Organization of American States, for shared borders and common colonial histories. The OAS encompasses the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, of which Canada is party to the Inter-American Convention of Human Rights and the United States is not. These commonalities, as well as the prevalence of legal disputes where resource development and extraction occurs on indigenous lands, shapes the jurisdiction choices for this thesis. Cases dealing with extractive industries and indigenous land rights were selected from high judicial authority within each jurisdiction and were analyzed through a theoretical framework consisting of settler colonialism and environmental racism. Cases selection is not restricted to Supreme Court rulings of Canada and the United States, however, as the lower level court decisions significantly impact upon particular indigenous communities who derive their rights from territorially specific treaties. This thesis concludes that, while legal principles that govern the Inter-American Court of Human Rights finds cases more favorably for indigenous petitioners. The decentralized legal landscape of indigenous land rights in the United States, as well as judicial limits, inhibits environmental justice for indigenous communities. Canada’s streamlining efforts in law, and the principles with which its courts approach these kinds of cases reveals a better environmental justice framework for indigenous communities. |
| Supervisor | Aistara, Guntra and Steger, Tamara |
| Department | Legal Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/kleiva_kayleigh.pdf |
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