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    Canadian Political Science Association
    2020 Annual Conference Programme

    Confronting Political Divides
    Hosted at Western University
    Tuesday, June 2 to Thursday, June 4, 2020
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    Presidential Address:
    Barbara Arneil, CPSA President

    Origins:
    Colonies and Statistics

    Location:
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 05:00pm to 06:00pm
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    KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
    Ayelet Shachar
    The Shifting Border:
    Legal Cartographies of Migration
    and Mobility

    Location:
    June 04, 2020 | 01:30 to 03:00 pm
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    Keynote Speaker: Marc Hetherington
    Why Modern Elections
    Feel Like a Matter of
    Life and Death

    Location:
    Wednesday, June 3, 2020 | 03:45pm to 05:15pm
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    Plenary Panel
    Indigenous Politics and
    the Problem of Canadian
    Political Science

    Location: Arts & Humanities Building - AHB 1R40
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 10:30am to 12:00pm

Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous Peoples and Politics



L10(a) - Theorizing the United Nations and Human Rights: Declarations, Conventions and Compacts 1

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Abigail Bakan (University of Toronto)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Laura Macdonald (University of Calgary)


Session Abstract: This panel (one of a double panel proposal) invites consideration of the emergence and impact of conventions, declarations and compacts asking: what is gained or ignored if the United Nations is theorized in relation to its role in knowledge production about human rights? Since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has been a key site in the development and advancement of human rights, with written statements in the form of declarations, conventions, and compacts which, even though they may be non-binding, potentiate a moment of consensus for a common approach on pressing global challenges. Dominant realist perspectives since the 1970s place emphasis on theorizing the role of the UN as an international organization of competing state interests; however, non-governmental actors have also played a key role, including through international fora that have led to important declarations concerning inter alia women’s rights, racial discrimination and Indigenous rights.


The UN as Knowledge Producer: Assessing the Human Rights Impact of Conventions, Declarations and Compacts since the 1990s: Yasmeen Abu-Laban (University of Alberta)
Abstract: The accused shooter who killed 51 people in two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques, Brenton Tarrant, is alleged to have had an ammunition clip with the words “Here’s your migration compact.” This is widely understood to have been a reference to Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. This compact is a non-binding agreement worked out between governments under the auspices of the United Nations along with the Global Compact on Refugees, in December 2018. The ideological construction of the UN as a perceived threat to national governments has been a thematic in the discourse of right wing populist and white supremacist movements in Western countries. This framing sits uneasily with the more standard progressive, liberal and realist framings of the UN which posit an organization of individual states competing for the assertion of sovereign rights. Our paper, drawing from a SSHRC-funded research project, argues that human rights discourses have evolved regarding gender, race, Indigenous peoples, migrants and refugees since the mid-1990s. Using a discourse analysis of UN conventions, declarations and compacts relating to these groups, we argue that the United Nations can be understood most accurately as a knowledge producer, and consider the various contexts of how this relates to state sovereignty and civil society.


The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Global Change through Normative Shift: Sheryl Lightfoot (University of British Columbia)
Abstract: While Indigenous peoples are often dismissed as marginal non-state actors in world politics, and Indigenous rights are cast off as merely aspirational and non-binding within settler states, this paper argues the contrary. Far from insignificant, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is forging major changes in the international system and also within some settler states, as the implementation of Indigenous rights ultimately requires a re-thinking and re-ordering of sovereignty, territoriality, decolonization, liberalism and human rights. I argue that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is more than just a set of norms emerging and diffusing on the global stage. Rather, Indigenous rights, as embodied in the Declaration, also represent a moment of revolutionary transformation in global politics, but are often overlooked and under-appreciated, in both international relations theory and in practice. Further, the Indigenous rights movement provides vivid examples of viable, alternative ways of engaging in global politics. Indigenous rights and the Indigenous rights movement thus represent important shifts in both the structure and the practice of global politics—serving as what I call a transformational norm vector, pointing the way toward some alternative ways of doing global politics and new imaginings of political order that can potentially come to exist.


The Inter-American Convention on Human Rights and Community-Led Mechanisms of Transitional Justice: The Case against Jean-Claude Duvalier (Haiti 1971-1986): Célia Romulus (Queen's University)
Abstract: Despite strong stances taken by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), regarding the Haitian state’s obligation to investigate human rights violations perpetrated during the Jean-Claude Duvalier dictatorship (1971-1986), in January 2012, a Haitian magistrate judge decided to dismiss the political violence charges against the dictator. A platform regrouping plaintiffs, human rights and feminist organizations – Le Collectif contre l’impunité – appealed the ruling and the Appellate Court in Port-au-Prince rendered a decision reinstating the political violence charges because there is no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity This paper uses interdisciplinary methods to explore how Le Collectif mobilized the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and, customary international law to push the Haitian judiciary to bring Duvalier to trial. The analysis will thus shed light on the role played by non-governmental actors in mobilizing non-binding international instruments to push governments to put domestic measures into place to address human rights violations constituting crimes against humanity. In addition, analyzing communication, memorialization and legal strategies deployed by Le Collectif allows us to interrogate the merit of the traditional dichotomy between state-based and community-led initiatives regarding transitional justice, and thus to contribute to policy debates on the politics of memory, redress and reconciliation.




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