Science and the Indigenous Arctic - Legal basis for Inuit Sovereignty in the Circumpolar Region by Charles Etok Edwardsen, Jr.
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DOCUMENT: ARCTIC.TXT
S C I E N C E A N D T H E I N D I G E N O U S A R C T I C
from
Charles Etok Edwardsen, Jr
211 McCarrey #16
Anchorage, Alaska 99508
(907) 338-4930
June 15, 1993
I wish to thank the Polar Research Board and Dr. Loren Setlow for the
privilege of sharing our views regarding our homeland and the impact
of quantitative science.
We, the Inuit, cannot really know what a contemporary experiment means
unless we understand what materials and what instruments and what
sciences are involved in its design. This is why the growing edge of
science is so inaccessible to our common experience in Alaska and our
Circumpolar Inuit homeland.
The Inuit, of the Circumpolar Region, qualify as a nation state under
international law. Therefore the Inuit of Canada, Denmark, United
States, and Russia have met the criteria of Article I of the
Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States. Our inherent
rights to sovereignty as defined by longest peaceful existence have
never been extinguished by the claims of discovery by the Spanish,
Russians, British, Portuguese, Danes, Americans, nor Canadians.
Unlike the origins of the United States, France, and Russia, the Inuit
call to freedom maintains our tradition of the longest peaceful
occupation, co-existence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of the
Arctic since time immemorial. Based upon our self-determination and
supported by International Law, we make this Declaration of
Sovereignty which signifies Inuit Independence from all Anglo-european
original or derivative states, and from any infringement of Inuit
Sovereignty. And, therein lies the healing truth for the Inuit and for
our homelands which have been threatened by quantitative science and
selective enforcement of laws outside of the scope of the
Constitutions of the United States, Canada, and Russia.
Sovereign immunity for unrecognized regimes has been practiced by the
United States Supreme Court and began with _The Schooner Exchange vs.
M'Faddon_. In an opinion by Justice Marshall, the Supreme Court
affirmed the dismissal of the libel because a warship "in the service
of a foreign sovereign, with whom the government of the United States
is at peace" should be exempt from U.S. jurisdiction. Marshall's
analysis began with the premise that no sovereign would voluntarily
subject itself to the jurisdiction of another. Marshall states that
"all sovereigns have consented to a relaxation . . . of that absolute
and complete jurisdiction within their respective territories which
sovereignty confers."
The act of state doctrine was adopted by the Supreme Court as a
principal of judicial restraint to avoid the unseemliness and
potential problems that might arise if the courts of one nation sat in
judgment over a foreign sovereign. In the words of the Restatement
(Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the U.S., "[i]n the absence of a
treaty or other unambiguous agreement regarding controlling legal
principles, courts in the United States will generally refrain from
. . . sitting in judgment on . . . acts of a governmental character done
by a foreign state within its own territory and applicable there."
Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the U.S. Section
443 comment a (1987).
Most certainly the Treaty of Cession of 1867 and the Maritime Boundary
Treaty of 1990 are flagrant examples of unconsented taking of
indigenous lands in the Inuit Homeland. The United States government
has been the sole benefactor of the largest illegal expropriation of
Inuit Homelands.
This empirical coordination of economic interests undermined the
Constitution of the United States of America. However, the United
States has elected to become civilized as a signatore to the
Convention of Genocide forty-years later than other countries. The
Genocide Convention was submitted to the Senate by President Truman in
June, 1949. On February 19, 1986, the Senate consented to ratification
with the reservation that legislation be passed that conforms U.S. law
to the precise terms of the Treaty. This enabling legislation was
approved by Congress in October 1988, and signed by President Reagan
on November 4, 1988. This legislation amends the U.S. Criminal Code to
make genocide a federal offense. It also sets a maximum penalty of
life imprisonment when death results from a criminal act defined by
the law.
The Genocide Convention proscribes conduct that is juristically
distinct from other forms of prohibited wartime killing (i.e., killing
involving acts constituting crimes of war and crimes against
humanity). Although crimes against humanity are linked to wartime
actions, the crime of genocide can be committed in peacetime or during
a war. According to article I of the Genocide Convention: "The
contracting parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time
of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which
they undertake to prevent and to punish." For the first time in
history, the Inuit of the Circumpolar Region no longer fear the
threats of standing armies of the allied occupation of the northern
world.
The higher-law obligations found in the American political tradition
compel the United States to take the lead in the prosecution of the
Iraqi war criminals. The principle of a higher law is one of the
enduring and canonic principles in the history of the United States.
Codified in both the Declaration of Independence and in the
Constitution, it rests upon the acceptance of certain notions of right
and justice that obtain because of their own obvious merit.
"Indian" law is race law and the history of indigenous peoples in
international law is one of genocide and forced assimilations,
motivated by racial prejudice such as the "forced incorporation" of
the indigenous peoples of Alaska into the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act. The Arctic Slope Native Association voted "No" to
ANCSA. They seem to have been the only representatives within the
Alaska Federation of Natives with the ability to see into the future
and to recognize a land robbery in the guise of a poor third world
contract. A Universal Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
may help us to gain a more honest perspective on the claims
settlement.
When was the last time that any of you met a man or woman from
elsewhere who understood the bowhead or the walrus better than Inupiat
hunters and their families? Dr. Michael Tillman was a speaker at the
recent Inuit Circumpolar Conference for Commerce. At an evening social
event Dr. Tillman, Director of Protected Species, National Marine
Fisheries, and his colleagues informally admitted that to this day the
federal scientists have operated without the knowledge of the
recruitment rate of the bowhead specie. Under the auspices of Dr.
Tillman, science had been used to belittle the entire Inupiat whaling
culture to achieve nationalistic goals of the Reagan/Bush
administration for a quick fix for the oil industry. As a consequence,
Dr. Tillman created a false polarization, in the name of science, to
politically suppress the vital way of life of the Inupiat culture and
turned the issue into a national display of force.
The State of Alaska does not exist in a vacuum of itself. The State of
Alaska is subject to a compact, within the Statehood Act, between the
United States and the indigenous Tribes of Alaska. The State of Alaska
is not a sovereign of itself and, therefore, cannot be a signatore to
any treaty by itself. This basic principle of federal law has been
with us all this time. It is just that it is in the best interests of
the State of Alaska to maintain this fraud. Read what the Bureau of
Indian Affairs and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published in
1976:
"Furthermore, the Indian treaties were not a grant of
rights to the Indians, but rather a grant of rights from
them to the non-Indians, with the Indians reserving to
themselves those rights not granted. The treaties
specifically protect those reserved rights. These basic
principles of Federal law, which undergird the decisions
in Indian treaty rights cases, have been the subject of
much misunderstanding and some non-Indians have found them
difficult to accept."
Someone may say that the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act precludes
treaty rights. This statement is based upon another fraudulent
assumption as it is important to realize that a treaty is not an act
of Congress. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act as an act of
congress was a forced incorporation of indigenous peoples and can now
be reexamined within the context of the United States Genocide Treaty
Convention.
The legal basis of the United States within the territory of Alaska is
not derived from within the United States Constitution First, there
was never a treaty nor consensual relationship between Czarist Russia
and the indigenous tribes of Alaska. Secondly, the Treaty of Cessions
of 1867 between Russia and the United States is not a transfer of
sovereignty nor a secession of lands from the indigenous population.
Therefore, the United States government is an occupational force
within Alaska.
This occupation can now be challenged under international law,
particularly in that the United States and Russia cannot manufacture,
between themselves, sovereignty which they have not acquired nor can
ever acquire either on March 30, 1867 nor through the ratification of
the Maritime Boundary Treaty of September 16, 1991. For the last 250
years in Alaska, Russia and the United States, have been outside of
civilized international law and outside of their own constitutions.
The United States and Russia have been the benefactors of this
unconstitutional occupation and have enjoyed one trillion dollars of
ill-gotten gains. And, what of the indigenous peoples of Hawaii?
Just as the State of Israel did not exist at the time of the
commission of the crimes in question, the Inuit have adopted the Inuit
Code of Offenses Against the Peace and Security of Mankind.
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