Right Of Self-determination Research Articles

Our People, Our Health: Envisioning Better Primary Healthcare in Manitoba First Nation Communities

Recognizing the right of self-determination of Indigenous Peoples is essential to improving the state of community-based primary healthcare of First Nations in Canada. Understanding communities’ priorities and local health agendas is critical for primary healthcare transformation. We used a community-based participatory research approach to engage our partners: Nanaandawewiwgamig, the First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba, and eight First Nation communities. Community-based research assistants conducted 183 in-depth interviews in their respective First Nations. Key themes that emerged from these interviews include primary prevention focused on health and social determinants; an integrated healthcare system providing access to both Western and First Nations traditional health knowledge; infrastructure improvement; youth engagement; healthcare leadership; investing in community-based human resources; and promoting culturally respectful, responsive, geographically sensitive, and outcomes-oriented care. Policy approaches could implement some local priorities with direct impact on healthcare, while other social determinants will create indirect, albeit critical, conditions for health and healthcare changes over time.

Benefits and risks of psychiatric actions and the patient's right of self-determination

Die Geschichte der Psychiatrie zeigt, dass ein Selbstbestimmungsrecht des psychisch Kranken im 19. Jahrhundert weitgehend unbekannt war, erst spät in der 2. Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts mit dem rechtlichen Konzept der Einwilligung nach Aufklärung, dem „informed consent“, in der Medizin bekannt wurde und seit Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts in der medizinischen Praxis zunehmend wahrgenommen und respektiert wird; diese Wahrnehmungsänderung trägt zu einem Wandel von einer paternalistischen zu einer partizipativen ärztlichen Einstellung bei. Im Kontext einer emanzipatorischen Entwicklung der Gesellschaft nimmt mit den wachsenden Möglichkeiten wirksamer Therapien, die selten ohne Risiken sind, die Notwendigkeit zu, den Patienten über den intendierten Nutzen und potenzielle Risiken der empfohlenen Intervention zu informieren und ihm damit die Voraussetzung zu schaffen, sein Selbstbestimmungsrecht wahrzunehmen. Zudem wachsen mit dem Übergang von einer sehr erfolgreichen Akutmedizin mit allerdings oft nur kurzem Arzt-Patienten-Kontakt zur Langzeitmedizin chronischer Erkrankungen die Möglichkeiten, den Patienten, insbesondere den psychisch Kranken, seine individuellen Eigenheiten, seine Einschränkungen und Fähigkeiten besser wahrzunehmen, ihn als Individuum, als Menschen in seiner jeweiligen Eigenart zu erleben und sein Selbstbestimmungsrecht zu respektieren, indem wir ihm dabei helfen, Nutzen und Risiken einer empfohlenen Intervention zu verstehen und selbstbestimmt abzuwägen.

Relational ontology and more-than-human agency in Indigenous Karen conservation practice

Conservation scientists increasingly recognise the value of Indigenous knowledge in conservation practice. However, studies of Indigenous knowledge and resource management systems have often tended to overlook the role and agency of more-than-human beings and ceremonial protocols in mediating human–environment relationships. This paper presents results from community-based research with Karen communities in the Salween Peace Park, an innovative Indigenous-led conservation initiative in the autonomous Karen territory of Kawthoolei, on the border between Thailand and Burma, or Myanmar. Our findings detail ways in which relations with more-than-human beings, including spirits, constitute environmental governance in Karen communities. These findings compel externally situated conservation biologists to take relational ontologies seriously, allowing local interlocutors’ lived experience, knowledge, and theory to challenge culturally bound concepts such as resources, management, and conservation. In order to transform conservation biology through Indigenous perspectives, it is essential to pay attention to the relational world in which many Indigenous Peoples live. Doing so helps support a conservation practice attentive to the interdependence of all life in ways that uphold Indigenous Peoples’ rights of self-determination, cultural identity, and social relations with their ancestral lands. We argue that attending to these relations is essential to building community-based conservation collaborations with Indigenous Peoples that are more effective, sustainable, and just.

Commemoration and Jewish National Identity: Lviv in the Last Decades of the Nineteenth Century

Commemoration and Jewish National Identity:Lviv in the Last Decades of the Nineteenth Century Ela Bauer (bio) In January 1886, the Jewish world commemorated one hundred years since the death of Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786). In Dessau, Mendelssohn's birth place, Berlin, New York, and other places, Jews and non-Jews gathered together to honor him.1 Not everyone in the Jewish world at that time believed that Mendelssohn and his legacy deserved commemoration.2 In the Jewish community of Lviv (Lemberg, Lwów), the administrative capital of the province of Galicia, Jews and non-Jews came together to honor Mendelssohn in the local progressive synagogue (temple).3 Those who attended this ceremony listened to a lecture delivered by Rabbi Bernard Levehstien (1821–1889), the temple's preacher, and to the singing of temple's choir. At the club of Shomer Yisra'el (Guardian of Israel), a lecture dedicated to Mendelssohn was delivered by the president, Dr. Emil Bik (1845–1906).4 While Agudat Akhim (Association of Brothers) did not organize a ceremony,5 its bilingual (Polish and Hebrew) periodical, Ojczyzna-HaMazkir, reported on several commemoration events in different parts of Galicia.6 At the club of Mikra Kodesh (Holy Assembly), this date got no attention. The official explanation for ignoring the event was the illness of the head of the association, Rabbi Josef Kobak (1835–1913). During the weeks that Kobak was ill, many of the association's planned activities were cancelled. After his recovery, there was no point in retroactively commemorating events, including the hundred-year anniversary of the death of Mendelssohn.7 Several members of the association did not accept this official explanation, including Mordecai Ehrenpreis (1869–1951), who argued that Mikra Kodesh did not commemorate the anniversary of Mendelssohn's passing because the founders of the association did not agree with his agenda and ideology.8 We know that the founders and members of Mikra Kodesh appreciated and admired the Hebrew writer Peretz Smolenskin (1842–1885), who, among other things, was known for his criticism of Mendelssohn.9 It might be that the admiration and appreciation that the founders and members of Mikra Kodesh felt for Smolenskin led to the decision not to commemorate Mendelssohn.10 After all, the events chosen to be commemorated by Mikra Kodesh were [End Page 1] related to specific dates and people that supported the ideological agenda of the association. These types of events mirrored the multifaceted components of their identity.11 This article examines the different events that the associations Mikra Kodesh and Zion choose to commemorate in Lviv in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the ways that various components of the personal and collective identities of the association's members were articulated in these events, and how these commemorations were affiliated with the formation of Jewish national collective memory. ________ The province of Galicia (officially, Galizien and Lodomerien) appeared on the map for the first time when it became crown land of the Habsburg Empire, after the first partition of Poland in 1772. Although the name of the province is linked to the medieval Ukrainian principality of Halych, from 1772 until 1918, i.e., the time in which the region was under Austrian authority, the territory of Galicia included additional lands that were not part of the medieval Ukrainian principality of Halych. The population of Austrian Galician was multiethnic, including Poles, Ruthenians (Ukrainians), and Jews. There were also small German and Armenian minorities that during the nineteenth century integrated into the Polish nationality. Poles and Ukrainians each accounted for over 40 percent of the population and Jews for over 10 percent. In Western Galicia, Poles were the majority. In Eastern Galicia, the Ruthenians comprised the largest part of the population. In 1867, the Jewish residents of Galicia became citizens of the empire.12 In the same year, as part of the Austrian Ausgleich (dual monarchy, with Hungary), the Polish minority in Galicia received the right of self-governance. Until World War I, Polish was the language of government and local bureaucracy, as well as the language of instruction, first in elementary- and middle-school systems and later at the universities in Kraków and Lviv. From 1867...

The Inefficiency of Employment and the Case for Workplace Democracy

While most working people are in employment, there is little realisation that this relationship is inefficient and inequitable due to mis-aligned incentives – employers, as residual claimants, have an incentive to elicit greater than socially optimal effort from workers, thus generating conflict and exploitation, while workers have no 'voice' and 'exit' is costly. Workplace democracy combines efficiency and equity, aligning incentives and giving workers their natural right of self-determination, but is relatively rare due to the historically constructed power of concentrated capital owners. We show how workplace democracy can be established without expropriating capital owners, yielding efficiency and welfare gains.

مافی چارەی خۆنووسینی گەلی کورد لە عێراق و تێڕوانینێکی یاسایی بۆ ڕیفراندۆمی هەرێمی کوردستان لە ساڵی ٢٠١٧دا

The right of self-determination is a legal concept under international law in which nations can freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development without external interferences. They may accomplish such self-determination either through uniting with another independent sovereign state or establishing an independent sovereign state for themselves. This principle is considered one of the international principles, which dates back to the American Revolutionary War (1776-1777) and the French Revolution (1789-1799). It was primarily a political right of nations. However, after the establishment of the United Nations, this principle developed to become a legal principle and attained jus cogens status. In this context, Kurdish nation in Kurdistan Region of Iraq has continuously attempted to obtain this right by relying on international principles, but it was always impeded by a number of factors. Unlike any other nation, so far, the Kurds were unable to exercise this right despite the fact that they chose various methods to obtain it. Finally, a referendum was held on September 9, 2017, as one of the peaceful ways to exercise this right, as it is considered one of the most diplomatic ways to take public opinion on crucial issues, including the issue of independence. However, this referendum was unsuccessful despite the fact that 92,73% of voters voted yes for independence. The failure of this referendum is due to several factors, which we attempt to refer to within the framework of our research.

Iran`s Policy in the Syrian Civil War: From Liberal Pacifism to Liberal Interventionism

The Syrian civil war which broke out in March 2011 further destabilized the Middle East in general and the Levant in particular. From among many implications of this conflict such as the deaths of more than 400,000 civilians and the refugee crisis, it caused the heavy involvement of regional (such as Islamic Republic of Iran, the GCC states, Jordan, and Turkey) and trans-regional (the United States, Russia, and many European countries) actors. Iran has been one of the main players in the Syrian conflict theater. This article seeks to explain Iran`s policy towards the violent events in Syria and analyze its evolution during 2011-2018. By underestimating the role of geopolitics in contrast to the dominant literature, our main argument is that Iran`s policy in the Syrian civil war has evolved from support for the self-determination right of the Syrian people through diplomatic means (liberal pacifism) to support for the Russian military intervention (liberal interventionism). We further try to analyze why this shift in Iran`s policy towards the Syrian crisis occurred

The International Law of Colonialism in East Africa: Germany, England, and the Doctrine of Discovery

The non-European, non-Christian world was colonized under international law that is known today as the Doctrine of Discovery. This common-law international Doctrine was codified into European international law at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 and in the Berlin Act of 1885 specifically to partition and colonize Africa. Thirteen European countries and the United States attended the four month Conference and then thirteen countries signed the Berlin Act on February 26, 1885. Under the Discovery Doctrine and the Berlin Act, European countries claimed superior rights over African nations and Indigenous Peoples. When European explorers planted crosses, signed hundreds of treaties, and raised flags in many parts of Africa, they were making legal claims of ownership and domination over the native nations and peoples, and their lands and assets. These claims were justified in the fifteenth and in the nineteenth centuries by racial, ethnocentric, and religious ideas about the alleged superiority of European Christian nations. This Article examines the application of the Doctrine and the Berlin Act by England and Germany in East Africa, the area that now comprises Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. This comparative law analysis demonstrates convincingly that the Berlin Act and these colonizing countries applied what we define as the ten elements of the Doctrine of Discovery. These elements had been developed and refined by European legal and political systems since the mid-1400s. Over 400 years later, the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 expressly and implicitly adopted and codified all ten elements to control the European partition and colonization of Africa. Germany and England used this international law to colonize East Africa. Needless to say, European domination, exploitation, and colonization seriously injured the human, property, sovereign, and self-determination rights of Indigenous nations and peoples and still impacts them today. The comparative legal analysis set out in this Article will benefit readers to see more clearly how law affected and directed African colonization, and to develop a better understanding of the international law of colonialism, that historic process, the impacts of colonization, and why this knowledge is of crucial importance to us all.

Current Political Manifestations of Regionalism in the Context of the Power Crisis in Ukraine

This article analyzes the manifestations of regionalism in the context of a deep socio-political crisis in Ukraine. With the development of the political crisis that followed the coup d'etat in February 2014 in Ukraine, there was a noticeable actualization of issues and problems related to regionalism, society as a whole demonstrated a request for the redistribution of powers between the power center and the regions. This is reflected in numerous initiatives of regional authorities and public organizations aimed at expanding the financial base, functions and rights of local authorities and self-government, as well as in policy documents of political forces. At the same time, in some cases, the idea of establishing a contractual relationship between the Central government and the regions was put forward, which is typical for the Federal model of government. In response to this request, the Executive branch made another attempt to implement local government reform under the slogan of decentralizing the country's state structure. Since 2014, Ukraine has developed two multidirectional trends – centrifugal and centripetal, the ratio of which will determine the dynamics and severity of political manifestations of regionalism. Despite numerous autonomist statements, Ukrainian regionalism remains within the "rigid" model formed in the post-Soviet period. The conflict in the South-East of the country and the deep involvement of the leading powers – Russia, the United States and the European Union-are the determining factor that predetermined the "freezing" of regionalization processes in Ukraine after 2014. After the signing of the Minsk agreements, the implementation of which means for Ukraine to introduce elements of Federal relations into the system of state structure, the reform of the state structure and territorial administration has become inextricably linked with Kiev's strategy towards the self-proclaimed republics of Donbass. Manifestations of regionalism were perceived by Kiev to a large extent in the context of threats to the territorial integrity of the country, which significantly limited the possibility of implementing the policy of decentralization. In addition, Russia and the United States have demonstrated in practice different approaches to the interpretation and implementation of the Minsk agreements, which has had a negative impact on the regionalization processes in Ukraine. The nature of the processes of regionalization in Ukraine allows to draw Parallels with the situation in Transnistria and around him, and to talk about common Moldovan and Ukrainian models hard regionalism, the hallmark of which is the transformation of the regionalization processes in a tool to achieve political goals of Russia and the West in conflict with the nature of their interaction on post-Soviet space.

Judicial form of protection of violated rights of local self-government in the Russian Federation

Judicial form of protection of violated rights of local self-government in the Russian Federation

Between Control and Empowerment: Local Government and Acknowledgement of Adat Villages in Indonesia

The local government’s acknowledgment of adat (customary) communities and adat villages, as regulated in the Village Law 6/2014 , appear to signal an increasing recognition of adat law. However, the current acknowledgment practices and adat village formalizations have become areas of legal contestation between adat communities and state-national and local governments. Despite the resurgence of formal legal pluralism, those acknowledgment and accommodation mechanisms are double-edged. They involve control and empowerment as emphasized in Hellman’s framework applied to analyze the dilemma in a plural society regarding cultural politics. On the one hand, the acknowledgment and accommodation mechanisms conducted through an official process necessitate the fulfillment of a list of requirements set by the government (controlled). Thus, there is a possible drawback for an asymmetrical position between the formal institution (recognition giver) and the community (recognition recipient). Conversely, the mechanisms are used by adat communities as a means to gain the rights of self-determination. Thus, empowerment is realized, because most local acknowledgment regulations include obligations of protection by the state and local governments. This paper discusses the dynamics of legal pluralism in Indonesia using cases of local acknowledgment and adat village institutionalization in which adat law becomes an element in formalizing the communities’ existence and adat village format. However, a question remains regarding whether the central position of adat law in such a mechanism is merely applied to fulfill the acknowledgment and accommodation requirement or whether it actually strengthens its capacity.

Federalism’s radical potential

Abstract The ability to rely on federalism as an effective response to deep divisions in post-conflict societies is often impaired by parties requiring too great a consensus on the ideological premises of the re-founded state: on the nation’s essential character; on who bears the right of self-determination; and on the historical foundations of the political community. As a result, the radical potential of federalism—its ability to accommodate, within a single political order, political communities possessing substantially different conceptions of foundational political legitimacy—is lost. This article reviews the nature and history of federations in order to establish that this radical potential is at the very heart of federalism. It describes the dynamics of allegiance in federal societies and suggests why federal states can flourish even in the presence of such significant differences. It then notes seven approaches that can facilitate the success of such federations.

CONTENT ANALYSIS AS THE METHOD OF STUDYING OF THE REGIONAL PRESS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE 19th CENTURY

The article analyzes the materials of the regional press of the southern provinces of the Russian Empire, published in the middle of the 19th century under the control of the Odessa Censorship Committee. Reconstruction of historical processes has its own epistemological features; it implies the need to search for various qualitative and quantitative methods of researching sources. Periodicals in general and the press of the southern region in particular have two important attributes of a mass source – the typology of the social phenomena reflected in it, and information richness, which makes it possible to solve a number of issues of its study using content analysis. At present, this method is one of the leading in the studying of periodicals in foreign and domestic science. The purpose of the article is to identify the possibilities of content analysis to study the perception of the regional press of the preparation of reforms carried out by the government of the Russian Empire in the 60-70-s of the 19th century. Content analysis shows that during the preparation and implementation of socio-economic transformations in the Russian Empire, the regional press mainly formulated the platform of entrepreneurs of the South: the abolition of serfdom, the development of industrial production and transport, freedom of trade. At the same time, the periodicals of the region vigorously advocated the implementation of other reforms: they defended the idea of granting the rights of broad self-government at the local level, the implementation of judicial reform, reforms in the field of censorship, 146 etc. According to content analysis, government bills assessments that are found in periodicals in the southern region are relatively diverse. They range from unconditional approval to skeptical remarks. The diversity of information in periodicals is represented by a certain number of domestic political priorities determined by the political orientation of the editorial board. For the implementation of content analysis in this aspect, the following have been obtained: 1) a catalog of topical social problems presented for the press discussion; 2) a catalog of ideas about the methods and tendencies of public assessment of the reformatory activities of the government on the pages of the regional press. The catalog includes the values of the economic and social sphere. The Value Orientation Analysis Tool has combined a number of binary constructs. This research have been identified the organs of the press with a certain value orientation to the traditional and reformatory scales. Content analysis showed the catalogs of values in the regional press mostly coincide. The average correlation coefficient for publications on the reformatory scale is 0.56 and on the traditional scale is 0.21. Thus, content analysis makes it possible to more clearly present the specifics of the discussion on the pages of the regional press of reform projects proposed by the government of the Russian Empire in the era of reforms, to count the number of comments on government projects, as well as to identify the influence of publicity on the final document approved by emperor Alexander II. Substantially different, the content-qualitative analysis and formal-quantitative analysis of press materials do not exclude, but mutually complement each other, allowing compensating for the shortcomings in each of them, because they pursue the same goal – to obtain valid and reliable research results. Their organic combination is most effective

Pluralism, Tolerance and Control: On the Millet System and the Question of Minorities

Abstract State accommodation of plural identity has remained very much subject to the contestations of a majority/minority paradigm, through which autonomy and tolerance are still negotiated and filtered. These social reconfigurations, including those oriented towards internal self-determination and minority rights regimes, reveal glimpses of a dark neo-colonial underbelly to state rule. A comparison between the Ottoman millet system and the Israeli control system illustrates that imperial modes of ‘divide and rule’, or ‘segmented pluralism’, continue to operate, and are sometimes even enhanced, through the deployment of minority rights. Using a selective Marxist reading, this paper will initially explore the parallels between imperial and modern state rule in the face of pluralism before discussing the methods used for hegemony-maintenance, including: segmentation; dependence; and cooptation. Finally, a socio-legal discussion on the ways in which the forces of hegemony are heavily guised and sustained will follow.

The Danish–German Border in Times of COVID-19

The Danish–German border in the Schleswig region was drawn in 1920. It separated a hitherto economically and socially integrated region, taking into account the right of national self-determination. Since the late 20th century, Danish and German stakeholders have celebrated a narrative of overcoming the border. Thus, it came as a shock to local stakeholders when the border was closed in mid-March 2020 to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The border subsequently reopened in steps with more or less free travel in the summer. Since October, however, new restrictions were imposed as infection numbers began rising in both countries.

Narrative Strategies of Decolonisation: Autoethnography in Mamang Dai’s The Legends of Pensam

According to John Quintero, “The decolonisation agenda championed by the United Nations is not based exclusively on independence. It is the exercise of the human right of self-determination, rather than independence per se, that the United Nations has continued to push for.” Situated within ontologies of the human right of self-determination, this paper will focus on an analysis of The Legends of Pensam by Mamang Dai, a writer hailing from the Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, to explore the strategies of decolonisation by which she revitalizes her tribe’s cultural enunciations. The project of decolonisation is predicated on the understanding that colonialism has not only displaced communities but also brought about an erasure of their epistemologies. Consequently, one of its major agenda is to recuperate displaced epistemic positions of such communities. In the context of Northeast India, the history of colonial rule and governance has had long lasting political repercussions which has resulted not only in a culture of impunity and secessionist violence but has also led to the reductive homogeneous construction of the Northeast as conflict ridden. In the contemporary context, the polyethnic, socio-cultural fabric of the Northeast borderlands foregrounds it as an evolving post-colonial geopolitical imaginary. In the light of this, the objective of this paper is to arrive at the ramifications of employing autoethnography as a narrative regime by which Mamang Dai reaffirms the Adi community’s epistemic agency and reclaims the human right towards a cultural self-determination.

Gestire o nascondere i conflitti socio-ambientali? La Social Licence to Operate nelle attività petrolifere dell’Amazzonia ecuadoriana

The main objective of this research was to critically examine the concept of Social Licence to Operate (SLO) in an oil concession of the Ecuadorian Amazon inhabited by indigenous villages. In this paper we present the qualitative data of the semi-structured interviews and the household survey with village residents. The main findings revealed the important role of the involvement of communities in the decision-making processes (procedural fairness), people’s perceptions of company’s socio-environmental impacts, the management of forms of protest and social services in the communities. Particularly, the results suggested that procedural fairness and the respect of communities’ right of self-determination are the basic requisite for the application of the SLO concept in the study area.

Procedural unconstitutionality and illegality of Prespa Agreement

The Prespa Agreement signed on June 17, 2018, which changed the constitutional name of the Republic of Macedonia, is a precedent on international law. In the procedure of his conclusion, ratification, and execution were committed serious violations of procedural rules. Although the violations that this agreement produces are numerous, and with different nature, the focus of this paper is on procedural violations. The Prespa Agreement also has a lot of substantial mistakes which is in confrontation with the Constitutional, and the international law because the Prespa Agreements provisions derogate some essentially fundamental rights as a right of self-determination. But this paper is focused only on fundamental violations of legal norms that prescribes the procedure for promulgation of the Prespa Agreement - the process of negotiation, conclusion, ratification, and publishing. The process of negotiating, signing and ratifying the Prespa Agreement is followed by flagrant violations of the constitutional norms, statute norms, and the norms of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in the part that regulates the issue of persons who was competence for adopting an authenticating the text of a treaty. Besides the introductory part and historical introduction to the genesis of the problem, the focus of this paper is the procedure of negotiating, concluding, and ratifying the Prespa Agreement. The procedural aspects of the referendum on the Prespa Agreement will be elaborate in the part called “negotiation and conclusion of international agreement” because, by the time being, this referendum was issue notice after the conclusion phase and before ratification.

Is this a Real Choice? Critical Exploration of the Social License to Operate in the Oil Extraction Context of the Ecuadorian Amazon

The purpose of this research was to critically analyze the social license to operate (SLO) for an oil company operating in Block 10, an oil concession located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The specific study area is an important biodiversity hotspot, inhabited by indigenous villages. A mixed-methods approach was used to support a deeper understanding of SLO, grounded in participants’ direct experience. Semi-structured interviews (N = 53) were conducted with village leaders and members, indigenous associations, State institutions, and oil company staff, while household surveys were conducted with village residents (N = 346). The qualitative data informed a modified version of Moffat and Zhang’s SLO model, which was tested through structural equation modelling (SEM) analyses. Compared to the reference model, our findings revealed a more crucial role of procedural fairness in building community trust, as well as acceptance and approval of the company. Procedural fairness was found to be central in mediating the relationship between trust and the effects of essential services provided by the company (medical assistance, education, house availability) and sources of livelihoods (i.e., fishing, hunting, harvesting, cultivating, and waterway quality). The main results suggested that the concept of SLO may not appropriately apply without taking into account a community’s autonomy to decline company operation. To enhance procedural fairness and respect for the right of community self-determination, companies may need to consider the following: Establishing a meaningful and transparent dialogue with the local community; engaging the community in decision-making processes; enhancing fair distribution of project benefits; and properly addressing community concerns, even in the form of protests. The respect of the free prior informed consent procedure is also needed, through the collaboration of both the State and companies. The reduction of community dependence on companies (e.g., through the presence of developmental alternatives to oil extraction) is another important requirement to support an authentic SLO in the study area.

The Constitutional Right of Local Self-Government

The Assembly Clause is the ugly duckling of the First Amendment. Brooding in the shadow of the heralded Free Speech Clause and the venerated Religion Clauses, the “right of the people peaceably to assemble” has been described even by its friends as “forgotten,” a “historical footnote in American political theory and law.” Not once over the past thirty years has the Clause been the subject of the Supreme Court’s attention. Instead, like a sleep-deprived parent of quadruplets, the Court has consistently muddled the right to assemble with “the First Amendment’s other guarantees of free expression.” The Court has not been alone in treating the Assembly Clause as redundant. From the day that Congress first debated putting the right to assemble into the Constitution, critics have asked why, if the Constitution protects the freedom of speech, anyone would “think it necessary, at the same time, to allow the right of assembling?” This question goes well beyond the First Amendment: forty-seven state constitutions also have assembly clauses, four of which predate the 1789 version. This Article offers a surprising answer. For over one hundred years before the First Amendment was drafted, American activists advanced what they called their right to “assemble” to defend their right to govern themselves. This rhetorical right first emerged to combat a seventeenth-century attempt by the British Crown to eliminate the town meetings and provincial assemblies by which the colonists had long legislated on their own behalf. Decades later, when the British government again attempted to restrict the powers of America’s local and provincial assemblies, colonial activists again responded by invoking their right to assemble their own governments and to use those governments’ powers to redress their grievances. By the time the American colonists drafted their first assembly clauses in the 1770s, the right to assemble was thus invoked to defend not merely the act of assembling, but also the assemblies that could exercise coercive legal powers to solve their constituents’ problem. In other words, the state and federal assembly clauses were interpreted to protect not a redundant right of expression, but a novel right of self-government. This Article describes the history of how American colonists first developed and constitutionalized the right to assemble. It argues that the right to assemble was invoked as a right to meaningfully participate in enacting needed legislation, whether directly, by representative, or by the threat of coercive behavior. Although the Article does not adopt the originalist position that the original intent or public meaning of this right has been permanently fixed into the constitutional order, it does argue that the historical context surrounding the early assembly clauses uncovers untapped possibilities for how the federal and state assembly clauses could be interpreted in the present. In an era when politicians choose their voters, millions of taxpayers are formally or effectively disenfranchised, and countless representative governments are inhibited from redressing their constituents’ grievances, revitalizing a constitutional protection of self-government seems invaluable.