Change the World

Rights or Wrongs? Canada and International Human Rights

 

 

A Public Workshop with UBC Graduate Students

Gulf Islands Secondary School, Multipurpose Room, January 8 & 9, 2011 

Saturday, January 8:

2:30-2:45 PM Introduction and Welcomes

The Best Man to Fight Child Prostitution: International Law, Canadian Law or Decriminalization? (Detailed outline)

Ji-Eun Kim, The Best Man to Fight Child Prostitution (25 Nov 2010) (Draft paper)

Water, development, and the public-private debate (Draft Paper)

Pablo Antezana Quiroga, "Water, development, and the public-private debate" (19 Nov 2010)

"The Right to Survive: Drinking Water Availability in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside" (Draft paper)

Mo Al Mehairbi, "The Right to Survive" (18 Nov 2010)

"Water as a human right – Inter-state dimensions" (Draft paper)

Gihan Indraguptha, Water as a human right" (18 Nov 2010)

"When Rights Conflict: Do supervised-injection sites raise competing human rights concerns?" (Draft paper)

See: Sam Eifling, "When Rights Conflict" (18 Nov 2010)

Recognizing the Human Right to Water: A Canadian Concern? (Draft paper)

David Morgan, Recognizing the Human Right to Water (16 November 2010)

Aboriginal Rights (draft paper section)

See: Forrest Barnum, Aboriginal Rights (16 Nov 2010)

Is there an international human right to a clean environment?

Marc Levesque, "Is there an international human right to a clean environment?" (detailed outline) 16 Nov. 2010

"Successful Decriminalisation: Supporting sex worker initiated projects to secure rights and dignities"

Hannah van Voorthuysen,  "Successful Decriminalisation" (draft paper) 16 Nov. 2010

"Virtuous Circles: embracing sexual human rights" (Draft Paper)

See: Frank Halderman, "Virtuous Circles" (15 Nov 2010)

“Sifting Through the Sand: A Comparative Case Study of Resource Extraction vis-à-vis Indigenous Peoples”

For our second draft paper, see: Scott Goosenberg, "Shifting Through the Sand"

Draft Paper: "From Statelessness to Global Citizenship"

For the first of our seminar's draft papers, see:

Matt Robinson & Tyler Harbottle, From Statelessness to Global Citizenship (12 Nov 2010)

Chantelle Bellrichard, "Failures in International Drug Control: Solutions for the Policy Vacuum"

Paper Outline

Addiction is a complex illness that cannot be effectively addressed by piecing together different, and often opposing, pieces of international law.  As long as addiction exists, the international community will struggle to control the illicit drug trade.  Outdated drug conventions, enforced by the International Narcotics Board (INCB) and the United Nations Narcotics Control Board (NCB), are in constant conflict with current human rights rhetoric.  An overwhelming amount of evidence reveals that that 'War on Drugs' has failed.  Anand Grover, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights confirmed these sentiments in October 2010. The illicit drug trade is worth an estimated $320 billion annually, a healthy economy in contrast to the struggling licit market.  The drug market flourishes, supply and demand continue to rule. Admitting the failures of current drug policy is the first step to recovery.  International drug control needs to be reorganized around a United Nations convention that exclusively asserts the rights of the addict.  

Marc Levesque: Beaver Lake Cree - Goals, Strategies, and Next Steps

Preamble: 

Aboriginal rights and environmental issues are often inextricably connected throughout instances of natural resource extraction around the globe. In many cases, the closer ties of indigenous populations to their environment mean they are often the first to be impacted by the effects of natural resource extraction on the environment. Though many nations, including Canada, have specific legislation or agreements in place to protect the way of life of these people, case studies from around the globe point to a systemic exploitation of indigenous peoples whenever natural resources (and the large sums of capital associated therewith) are in play. Without such agreements in place, it is likely that the international response to environmental damage would be far more muted. Based on the significant (though predominantly unsuccessful) way that indigenous groups have campaigned for their right to continue their traditional way of life in a clean environment, can we not infer the need for a general right to a clean environment to be enjoyed by all people, indigenous and other populations alike? More importantly, would there any possible international mechanisms for guaranteeing these rights, especially when in the indigenous context enforcement seems to be fundamentally lacking? The Canadian context is particularly interesting in this regard insofar as challenges are currently being presented to the government of Canada and the provincial government of Alberta by both indigenous and non-indigenous populations.

Email from Francis Scarpaleggia (Liberal MP and water critic)

Dear Mr. Morgan,

Thank you for your questions about the Liberal Caucus' position on the human right to water.  I very much appreciate your writing to me on this vital issue.

Water is one of the Liberal Caucus’ key policy priorities.  In 2005, I founded the National Liberal Water Caucus as a vehicle for Liberal M.P.s and Senators to give policy focus to water.  (Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians has in fact been a guest speaker at the caucus where she addressed the issue of the human right to water.)  Moreover, in 2007, through a motion tabled in the House of Commons, I called on the Conservative government to create a national water strategy, something the government has failed to do.  Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, however, has said that a Liberal government will create and implement a national water strategy.

Tyler Harbottle, "From Statelessness to Global Citizenship" (Paper outline)

Executive Summary and Recommendations

Introduction

Case Studies: The Plight of the Stateless

• Nubians in Kenya
• Roma in Europe
• The Lost Canadians

LGBT Human Rights Advocacy Project Proposal (Frank Halderman & Calyn Shaw)

Objective

The objective of our advocacy project is to achieve the commitment and endorsement of the federal political parties in Canada for the inclusion of LGBT human rights-focused language and policy in their national party platforms, prior to the next federal election. 

Scott Goosenberg, "Drawing a Line in the Sand: A Comparative Case Study of Resource Extraction vis-à-vis Indigenous Group Rights" (Project Outline)

Introduction

• The Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s (hereafter BLCN) society of 900 faces systematic threats against their way of life, by virtue of an economically fueled—and in part governmentally countenanced—onslaught to their way of life. Hailing from the southern tip of the Athabasca tar sands, the BLCN are placed in an impossible position of sustaining their lifestyle in a region possessing the largest deposit of non-conventional oil resources in the world. Economic benefits, juxtaposed with the potentiality of circumventing the necessity of oil procurement from comparatively unfriendly Eastern nations, have drastically minimized attention to the ecologically and socio-economically detrimental extraction methods employed on the Alberta tar sands vis-à-vis the BCLN. A steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process to extract bitumen, as well as strip mining and other methods, create a messy process that, along with impeding the BLCN’s capacity to hunt caribou and other animals, contaminates soil and ground water. Despite their size, this small group is seen by some environmentalists to be “one of the last and best hopes” to stop new tar sands projects. However, if the status quo prevails, there could be global ramifications involving exogenous air and water pollution, the specter of the boreal forest’s evisceration, disruption of the region’s animals, and the exacerbation of carbon emissions roughly three times higher than those of standard oil extraction. 

Ji-Eun Kim: Child Prostitution (Research Proposal)

Ontario Superior Court’s recent ruling that struck down key parts of Canada’s prostitution law has again sparked the heated debate on the decriminalization of prostitution. While sex-work advocates praised that the ruling would set up legal grounds to protect the safety and security of sex workers, the opponents of decriminalization assailed the ruling as potentially stabilizing the sex industry and encouraging the sexual exploitation of women as well as children. Although Justice Susan Himel, the judge of this ruling, stressed that other provisions on prostitution can still be used to restrain child prostitution, the impacts of the possible legalization of adult prostitution on underage prostitutes have not been discussed extensively. 

Pablo Antezana Quiroga: "Water, development, and the public-private debate"

Project proposal

Worldwide, approximately one in eight people lack potable water. The situation of lack of sanitation is far worse, for it affects 2.6 billion people, or 40% of the global population. Every year, 3 and a half million people die of waterborne illness. Diarrhea is the second largest cause of death among children under five. The lack of access to potable water kills more children than AIDS, malaria and smallpox combined. 

Gihan Indraguptha: Water as a human right – Inter-state dimensions

 Paper outline

• Introduction

Water as a human right

            Access to clean water for drinking and sanitation is at the verge of being accepted as a fundamental human right. Proponents of this action argue that elevating the right to water to this level would emphasise the gravity of the current crisis faced by a significant proportion of humanity, without access to this basic resource, and therefore force state parties to prioritise their efforts to address this issue. This paper expects to investigate the international dimensions of applying a human rights based approach to access to water.  

Calyn Shaw: Internationalization of LGBT Rights (Paper Outline)

Gay Rights are Human Rights: Canada’s role in the struggle for international LGBT Rights  

Research Question

What are the key international policy positions in regards to the internationalization of LGBT Rights, and what role can Canada play in the further development of these rights? 

Matt Robinson and Tyler Harbottle: Statelessness (joint paper outline)

Background:

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UHNCR) estimates there are 12 million stateless persons world wide.[1] Stateless persons generally lack the basic rights afforded to nationals of their host state; they are often refused the right to work, the right to basic education, legal protections, and health and other state services. Stateless persons are effectively pushed to the margins of society and prevented from reaching their full human potential.

Forrest Barnum: Beaver Lake Cree -- environmental rights (paper proposal)

Research Question: Can international law be used to entrench a broader conception of environmental rights in Canada?

Background: First Nations tribes in Canada have asserted their rights to a clean environment and cultural continuity almost continuously since confederation. Recent efforts have largely been decided in the courts, with several tribes choosing to sue various governments over consultation, development issues, and treaty obligations. There have been concerted efforts to bring international public opinion to bear on this issue: in 2005, Shelia Watt-Cloutier petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights demanding redress for the environmental damage caused by greenhouse gasses emanating from the United States; more recently, the Lubicon Cree’s grievances against the tar sands were profiled by Amnesty International.

Frank Halderman: Human Rights Legislation in Canada - Is there an international relationship?

Tentative Paper Outline:

Section 1: Introduction

Statement of the Problem: The focus of this paper is to investigate the policy development of (LGBT) sexual and human rights. Why should there be a case for the advancement of LGBT human rights internationally?

Background and Need:  

The origins of human rights and its evolution, to date; Canada and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms Section 15, pertinent UN Declarations, and international legislation regarding human rights. Who benefits and who loses?

Purpose of the Study: 

To better understand what the next steps are required to move LGBT human rights policies forward on the domestic and international stages. To establish what factors are critical for a UN submission regarding internationalizing LGBT human rights. To identify any policy feedback mechanisms at play in the legislative processes. 

David Morgan: Recognizing the human right to water – Does Canada even care?

Introduction

• This paper will argue that by opposing the recognition of water as an international human right, Canada is not only obstructing a rights-based approach to the provision of water in developing countries, it is preventing this approach within its own borders. While this recognition is not, by itself, a solution to the growing issue of water scarcity, it will place a legal and moral obligation on the government to improve the basic availability of safe drinking water for all Canadians

Ji-Eun Kim: Prostitution, Health, and Human Rights

Research Proposal: 

Both sides advocating the criminalization and decriminalization of prostitution often build their arguments on the basis of human rights. While the former claims that the criminalization of prostitution would encourage the physical and psychological exploitation of women, the latter argues that the decriminalization would provide the legal ground that can better protect sex workers.

Joshua Freedman: Is water a human rights issue? (paper outline)

In 1992, the Sudanese government forced the relocation of hundreds of thousands of squatters in Khartoum to desolate camps without adequate water supplies. A majority of these squatters were Christians and animists who had previously fled the destructive civil war raging in the countries south. Such forced relocations, according to Stephen McCaffrey, amounted to the use of water by a state as a political weapon. In the Philippines, several years later, the privatization of municipal water services in Manila, led to price increases, inadequate services, and poor water quality. Six years after the initial privatization, the World Bank identified Manila as one of the worst major Asian cities in regard to its water and sewer access.

Mo Al Mehairbi: Water and Sanitation in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside (Paper Outline)

 

Para 1. Abstract/Introduction.

Para 2. Previous literature and methodology.

Para 3. International law:

Norms in International law

UNDHR, 2 Covenants

Statements and Declarations within UN

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Mo Al Mehairbi: Advocacy Paper for the Improvement of Clean Water and Sanitation in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside

Abstract:

After the need for air to breathe, nothing is more vital for life than water.  Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the international framework of human rights has gained remarkable breadth and depth. In recent years, and within that framework, there is a widespread and rapidly growing consensus that the most basic level of human dignity enshrined in the ideal of human rights is not possible without a minimum quantity of clean water. However, that ideal is not being realised, and indeed has been actively resisted by the government of the citizens of Canada.  This project seeks to clarify the obligations of the Canadian government with respect to the provision of clean water to its citizens at the federal, provincial and municipal levels, beginning with commitments to both the letter and intent of international law.  Justifications will be respectfully demanded from the different levels of government for their current policies, and change will be demanded on behalf of those citizens of this remarkable country who are being consciously denied the minimum requirement for a decent life.  Provision of water and sanitation for the citizens of Vancouver, and in particular the Downtown Eastside (DTES) will be a specific test case, and the improvement of water resources in this region will be an objective of this project.

Scott Goosenberg: “How to Avoid Snake Oil: A Case Study of Indigenous Tribes vs. International Greed”

Project Outline

• Introduction

• The Beaver Lake Cree Nation of 900 is located at the southern tip of the Athabasca tar sands and face the disintegration of their cherished way of life through the steam assisted gravity drainage process to extract bitumen, as well as strip mining, and oil prospection as well as its drilling. This messy process, aside from impeding the BLCN’s capacity to hunt caribou and other animals, contaminates soil and ground water. Despite their size, this small group is seen by some environmentalists to be “one of the last and best hopes” to stop new tar sands projects. Moreover, the issue of tar sands reverberates worldwide, given that the process emits three times more carbon than non-SAGD extraction processes, on top of the humanitarian issue of maintaining the sustainability of the BLCN’s means of sustenance. 

• Thesis Question:

• How can the fairly analogous predicaments faced by other indigenous groups, both within Canada and worldwide, and the means through which they defended their rights, help to buttress the Beaver Lake Cree Nations’ efforts to achieve an optimal outcome in their own legal battle? 

Pablo Antezana Quiroga: Right to Water (Project Proposal)

Worldwide, approximately one in eight people lack potable water. The situation of lack of sanitation is far worse, for it affects 2.6 billion people, or 40% of the global population. Every year, 3 and a half million people die of waterborne illness. Diarrhea is the second largest cause of death among children under five. The lack of access to potable water kills more children than AIDS, malaria and smallpox combined. 

Hannah van Voorthuysen: Sex Workers Co-ops

Rights providers when Governments fall short?

The recent legal challenge in Ontario against the laws on prostitution drew both local and international attention to the current state of sex worker rights in Canada. The judge, Justice Susan Himel, ruled that three restrictive laws pertaining to the criminalisation of prostitution were unconstitutional and noted that they “individually and together, force prostitutes to choose between their liberty interest and their right to security of the person as protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” The very next day, the Federal Government announced its intention to appeal the case. 

The International Human Right to Water; Why Canada Should Care

Group Project (Abstract and Goals):

Based on our findings over the course of our independent research, our group will make an informed argument as to whether or not Canada should recognize the international human right to water. The recognition of this right could imply that governments must ensure access to safe water for drinking, food preparation and sanitation, for their own citizens and potentially for those of other countries; that water sources are protected from contamination and over-use; and that water is declared as a public trust and delivered as a public service on a not-for-profit basis.

Inherent in our recommendation will be a discussion on the implications, both domestically as well as within the international community, of Canada’s recognition of this right and the motivations currently driving the country’s continued opposition to this concept.* This may include potential financial gains from the privatization of Canada’s water resources, the responsibility to provide bulk exports of water to countries in need, the obligations to provide First Nations communities with access to clean water and current water usage in the Alberta Tar Sands project. 

Our academically-supported recommendation could take the shape of a draft private member’s bill, outlining the argument in support of Canada’s recognition of the international human right to water.

*In a recent vote in the UN General Assembly, Canada abstained from a resolution recognizing “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right”. 

Scott Goosenberg: Beaver Lake Cree (Abstract and group goals)

ABSTRACT:

In order to facilitate the Beaver Lake Cree people’s legal defence, this analysis will draw upon related Canadian and international case studies in order to discern what efforts were successful or futile in the past with regard to similarly intrusive and destructive measures to build pipelines in various contexts and environments. By utilizing a comparative-historical analysis format, a substantive, legal framework will be attained in order to expedite and improve upon the BLC Nation’s case in order to preserve their way of life. This deconstruction of analogous circumstances surrounding previous projects ex-ante and ex-post will aid in deducing the most efficacious manner through which the BLC can protect their rights. While cases will be synthesized with locales as disparate Alberta, Canada and Kirkuk, Iraq, there will be an emphasis on tactics that will publicise the plight of the BLC Nation towards the larger strategic end of winning their case. 

Ji-Eun Kim & Hannah van Voorthuysen, Prostitution and Human Rights

Prostitution Proposal 

Are domestic policy options constrained/facilitated by international law and politics?

The debate over prostitution is heady and passionate. The scope of the debate varies from those who argue that prostitution is a human rights violation/ a violation of women’s bodies, to those who argue that it should be decriminalised to protect sex workers and reconstructed as a human right under existing labour laws. 

Joshua Freedman: Is water a human rights issue?

The most fundamental, and practical purpose of enshrining an international legal contract of human rights has been to protect the vulnerable and the exploited. It is necessary then, before beginning any debate on the potentiality of enshrining access to water as a fundamental international human rights, to identify precisely who, due to vulnerability, have been exploited from ingesting and accessing the daily amounts of water necessary for both biological maintenance, and sanitation. The facts are quite clear; water scarcity disproportionately effects developing world countries, and the rural and urban poor elements of their population. Up to 30% of all unnatural deaths in the developing world can be attributed to water related causes and upward of 80% of all illnesses in the developing world are the result of water-borne diseases and contamination. These numbers are startling, not only does the lack of access to freshwater sources post the most vital and detrimental of immediate health risks, but the secondary effects of individuals relying on contaminated sources of water to meet their basic needs is in itself a humanitarian crises. Despite the severity of this situation however we must invariably ask two questions: I) Is this a human rights issue, and II) Can a human rights approach actually alleviate this suffering?

Calyn Shaw & Frank Halderman: Project Proposal - Submission to the United Nations

LGBT Rights are Human Rights: How to increase consensus amongst U.N. member states for the advancement of LGBT sexual and human rights internationally.  

Objective:

To make a clear argument for the legitimacy of including LGBT rights as a component of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to propose strategies to promote the inclusion of LGBT sexual and human rights in this declaration as a more universally acceptable international standard. In short, human rights are everyone’s right regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity (HRW, 2008). 

Calyn Shaw: Paper Proposal -- Internationalization of LGBT Rights

Gay Rights are Human Rights: Challenges for international LGBT rights 

Research Question

What are the key international policy positions in regards to the internationalization of LGBT rights?

Frank Halderman: LGBT Human Rights in Canada

LGBT Human Rights: Canada, its domestic role and impact on furthering international legislative.

Research Question: 

What are the policy origins of and current deficiencies, if any, in human rights legislation to protect the rights of LGBT individuals in Canada, and what role did the legislation in Canada, and in other pro-sexual rights nations, have on policy development on the international stage?

Matt Robinson and Tyler Harbottle: Project Proposal on Statelessness

Background

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UHNCR) estimates there are 12 million stateless persons worldwide. 

Stateless persons generally lack the basic rights afforded to nationals of their host state; they are often refused the right to work, the right to basic education, legal protections, and health and other state services. Stateless persons are effectively pushed to the margins of society and prevented from reaching their full human potential. 

It is often the case that people become stateless due to political or racial motivations, but it can also occur simply because of legislative gaps or inconsistencies between or within countries. It is an issue that affects people in developed and developing countries, and it spares neither adults nor children. 

Forrest, Scott & Marc: Baker Lake Cree -- Action proposal

Background

The Beaver Lake Cree nation filed suit against the Government of Canada on May 14, 2008, alleging tribal rights guaranteed under Treaty No. 6 were being violated by Tar Sand extraction and processing. Specifically, the vitiated rights include a number of game and range use guarantees the Cree were granted in exchange for giving up property rights.1  Simultaneously, the Tribe released the Kétuskéno Declaration, which notes that potentially harmful activities can only be undertaken on tribal land if extensive consultation takes place beforehand. A similar case, Tsilhqot’in First Nation v. British Columbia, returned a result favourable to the plaintiff in 2007. Essentially, “The Tsilhqot'in Nation was declared to have hunting and trapping rights, the right to capture wild horses, and the right to trade skins and pelts as required to secure a moderate livelihood; those rights were declared to have been unjustifiably infringed by the provincial forestry and land use planning regimes.”2 The case has since garnered media attention at home and abroad, and financial support from such agencies as the UK’s Co-operative Bank. The efforts of this small Native community are effectively becoming an international vehicle to challenge the oil sands project and its planned expansion through the controversial Northern Gateway Pipeline.

Marc Levesque: Beaver Lake Cree vs Tar Sands – Let’s take it international

Paper proposal:

Research Question

Do we now (or, if not, should we henceforth) have access to a clean environment as a human right?

Overview

    The Beaver Lake vs Tar Sands case is interesting window onto the greater contemporary problem of how climate change and large industrial projects effect the environment, and subsequently the way of life of local populations. In this case, the legal argument is being made on the basis of the 1876 Treaty Six agreements between the First Nations of Alberta and the Government of Canada promising the plaintiffs the right to hunt, fish, and trap on their former lands in perpetuity. The Beaver Lake Cree, with the aid of native rights superstar lawyer Jack Woodward, are citing “17,000 infringements by oil companies of [their] constitutionally protected treaty rights and seek[ing] injunctions against new developments.” Their legal challenge has since received international support and is seen as being “the last and best” legal hope to stop the proposed expansion of tar sands operations, including the controversial Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.

    Though the chief legal weapon brought to bear in this case is the Treaty 6 right to the use of land, and accordingly the context of the case is that of Native Rights, interesting questions are raised about what is to be done, and what rights may be threatened, in similar situations involving peoples who do not have recourse to specific Native rights claims. The question is, then, can a case be made in terms of general human rights in other (international) instances of large-scale environmental destruction? I intend to investigate this in the context of international law and international human rights.

Pablo Antezana Quiroga: Enforcing the right to water

More than one billion people inhabiting the planet, one-sixth of the world's population lack daily access to the vital element: water. In Latin America, more than 75 million people go through this situation. More than 2 billion men, women and children around the world (116 millions of Latin Americans) also lack adequate drainage and sanitation.

Sam Eifling: Drug Policy and Insite

As we define the human rights questions around Insite and similar safe injection sites, I'd like to pay special attention to the intersection of addiction and the law. Do the medical necessities that accompany addiction present governments with different considerations when treating addicts under the law? Can addiction be considered a compelling reason for a person to break local or federal statutes involving narcotics use, and should concerns about a greater societal good be weighed against the rights of an addict? For example, to what degree should the change in the rate of violent crime, for better or worse, be factored into the policy decision to allow or forbid drug use? And does a venue such as Insite – which in practice becomes a social center for intravenous drug users in addition to a purely medical facility – address a human rights concern that would fall outside the purview of other narcotics laws? 

Shannon Dooling: “Human Rights to Water and Sanitation; Legal Implications, the MDGs and Conflict Resolution

Background:

On the heels of the UN General Assembly having recognized the human rights to water and sanitation, the Independent Expert commissioned by the Human Rights Council to explore the potential human rights to water and sanitation, released her findings in August 2010. 

Catarina de Albuquerque’s research explained the human rights to water and sanitation as “implicit in components of the Right to Adequate Standards of Living” per Art. 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 

David Morgan: Water as an international human right - Will it make a difference? Does Canada even care?

    In recent years, there has been a growing realization of a looming ‘global water crisis’. Numerous factors – pollution, rapid industrialization and urbanization, intensive agricultural practices, and an expanding global population – have increasingly strained the world’s fresh water resources. Consequently, the number of people living without access to clean water and basic sanitation is rising on a daily basis. On July 28, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution recognizing “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right” (p. 2), highlighting the urgency of this crisis. Although this resolution is not legally binding for signatories, it entails a greater focus on justice and equality in the provision of water and opens the door to a future covenant on water as an international human right. Despite the potential of this movement, the Canadian government has become one of its leading opponents. This raises several important questions. Will the recognition of water as an international human right make any difference in its provision? If so, why is the Canadian government staunchly opposing this movement? This paper will explore these research questions, focusing on the debate regarding privatization and rights-based strategies, and the Canadian government’s opposition to the latter approach. 

Gihan Indraguptha: Water as a human right – Inter-state dimensions

Abstract : For several decades activists have been advocating a human rights based approach to address the right for universal access to water and sanitation. It is argued that elevating the right to water to a fundamental human right would emphasise the gravity of the current crisis faced by a significant proportion of humanity, without access to this basic resource, and therefore galvanise state parties to prioritise their efforts to address this issue. This paper expects to investigate the international dimensions of applying a Rights Based Approach to access to water.  The paper would also explore how a (legally binding) resolution that expects state parties bear the onus of ensuring the right to clean water for their populations, would impact already existing international conventions, treaties and practices that focus on trans-boundary water resources management.  It would also briefly discuss several prevailing trans-boundary water disputes and apply a Rights Based Approach in searching for a possible solution.  

Forrest Barnum: Beaver Lake Cree -- environmental rights

The Beaver Lake Cree nation filed suit against the Government of Canada on May 14, 2008, alleging their tribal rights guaranteed under Treaty No. 6 were being violated by Tar Sand extraction and processing. Specifically, the vitiated rights include a number of game and range use guarantees the Cree were granted in exchange for giving up property rights.  A similar case, Tsilhqot’in First Nation v. British Columbia, returned a result favourable to the plaintiff in 2007. Essentially, “The Tsilhqot'in Nation was declared to have hunting and trapping rights, the right to capture wild horses, and the right to trade skins and pelts as required to secure a moderate livelihood; those rights were declared to have been unjustifiably infringed by the provincial forestry and land use planning regimes.”

Scott Goosenberg: Beaver Lake Cree vs Tar Sands – Let’s take it international!

BACKGROUND

    History is not linear. Many pipelines have been built with negative consequences for adjacent communities, but an obvious answer for why these downtrodden aboriginal groups’ rights continue to be trampled upon by the powers that be remains elusive. When analyzing the threats faced by the Beaver Lake Cree nation, an historical foundation is integral; without the benefit of case studies, discerning the optimal methods that must be employed in order to obviate the predicament faced by the BLC nation, or at least seek to mitigate the ecological, psychological, and logistical problems that the Tar Sands projects have caused, would be an impossible feat. Unfortunately, there have been a series of developments over time that mirror many of the elements of this case, and many without the beneficial outcome of the Tsilhqot’in First Nation v. British Columbia case in 2007—the existence of Treaty No. 6 and the ostensible protection that these groups should derive from it notwithstanding.