Since the arrival of settlers in the 16th century, the Canadian Government has dispossessed First Nations people of their land and culture through a history of colonialism. This has led to over a century of contentious relationships between First Nations and the Canadian Government in which First Nations have often struggled with the revitalization and reclamation of their culture and land due to oppressive systemic structures. Cartography has been one approach, among many, adopted by First Nations to facilitate self-determination in recent decades. However, the role of cartography has been one focused on western technocratic approaches of drawing territorial boundaries as part of the land claims process. Such approaches may assist First Nations in documenting land use and negotiating territorial rights and as such move them towards self-determination. Conventional western cartography is inherently incapable of representing the rich spatial nature of First Nations’ sense of cultural place. More recently, cybercartography has emerged due to technological advances in software and web-based publishing that has the potential to encapsulate First Nations’ oral history and culture by providing digital multimedia elements (i.e. audio, imagery, and video) within a digital spatial context. The use of cybercartography in this manner is quickly increasing over time, but research is lacking in understanding how new representations of First Nations history and culture through cybercartographic frameworks explicitly facilitate, or prohibit, First Nations ability to attain self-determination. To address this gap, this study evaluates the ways in which contemporary cybercartographic technologies may facilitate the process of self-determination through an application development and interview process with a local First Nation on Vancouver island, BC. The research process throughout the project are evaluated using the Indigenous principles of Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession (OCAP) and uses this as a framework to understand how the experiences of the Nation relate to the broader narrative of self-determination. The results of this study suggest that using a community-engaged approach to cybercartography facilitates community-specific requirements of self-determination, mainly because community engagement can lead to the development of tools that match community objectives and needs. Furthermore, this study demonstrated that the OCAP principles have the potential to be used in future studies for evaluating the efficacy of technologies that are intended to facilitate self-determination in First Nation communities. / Graduate / 2021-04-16

Master thesis in Political Science by Alexander Gaber, 2015, ‘Evidence of the BenevolentState?- The Case of the R2P’ The study sets out to analyze the validity of the soldiarist prescriptive hypothesis that a shared understanding amongst the society of states can induce a circumstance where states will act selflessly by willingly subordinating their rights and sovereign prerogatives for the sake of individual rights. For this purpose the R2P legal doctrine is analyzed genealogically to generate an inference on if the dominant consensus within the society of states on the doctrine has generated this circumstance. The analysis concludes that the R2P doctrine has neither in customary - or codified international law enabled the individual’s right to protection to hold precedence over the right and sovereignty of the state. The case study, conclusively does not serve to validate the hypothesis, but neither does it invalidate it as the R2P constitutes a representative case. The intermarriage of the genealogical method with the English School framework is deemed fruitful and new insights into, specifically, the concept of sovereignty is generated which serves to evolve and reinforce the theoretical framework of English School Solidarism.

L’immatriculation des satellites est une procédure issue du droit international spatial, et en particulier de l’article VIII du Traité sur l’espace de 1967 et de la Convention relative à l’immatriculation des objets spatiaux de 1975. De nombreux États en précisent le champ, les modalités et la portée dans leur droit national. C’est le cas de la France, qui prévoit ce mécanisme dans sa « Loi relative aux opérations spatiales » de 2008 et ses textes d’application. L’immatriculation établit un lien de rattachement entre un État et un objet spatial, et c’est en particulier les satellites actifs qui font l’objet de la présente analyse. Ce lien de rattachement est attributif de la « juridiction et du contrôle » sur l’objet, expression dont il fallait cerner le sens précis. Synonyme de compétence dans un sens général, elle n’en renvoie pas moins à un devoir d’encadrement technique des activités dans l’espace de la part de l’État qui y procède. Ceci permet de préserver l’une des normes fondamentales du droit de l’espace, la liberté d’accès à l’espace extra-atmosphérique par tous les États. Le fait de mettre en place ces normes permet d’éviter que ces activités, intrinsèquement dangereuses, ne soient dommageables. Cette liberté d’accès à un espace non soumis à un titre de compétence territorial est un corollaire de la souveraineté de l’État. Cette liberté ne va pas sans difficultés. L’évolution des activités dans des espaces partagés, tels que l’espace extra-atmosphérique, la haute mer ou l’espace aérien surplombant cette dernière y contribue. Elle s’intensifie. L’espace extra-atmosphérique est de plus en plus utilisée. Le secteur spatial fournit en effet des services très demandés, et désormais indispensables à la société. On pense en particulier à la télédétection, aux télécommunications et aux systèmes de positionnement. De ce fait les satellites participent du mouvement de digitalisation de l’économie. L’espace peut donc être considéré comme un ressource rare, comme l’est déjà le spectre radioélectrique, indispensable aux communications avec les satellites. Dans un environnement de plus en plus concurrentiel, la tendance à optimiser le choix du droit applicable peut être un facteur d’économie, parfois au détriment de la sécurité des activités.Le droit maritime connait ce phénomène, avec les pavillons de complaisance. L’évolution des activités spatiales doit de ce fait prendre ce risque en compte. Dans ce cadre l’immatriculation est un mécanisme fondamental. D’une part, pour des raisons de sûreté matérielle. Il permet en effet d’assurer que le satellite sera opéré sous la surveillance d’un État. Si ce mécanisme ne peut pour l’instant que difficilement être contourné du fait de la responsabilité qui s’attache au statut d’Etat de lancement, il faut néanmoins soulever que celui-ci est un héritage des premiers temps des activités spatiales, qui ne correspond que peu avec la dynamique actuelle de ces activités. D’autre part, pour des raisons d’applicabilité du droit aux espaces numériques. En effet les satellites sont des infrastructures numériques, considérant le caractère fluide de ces activités, c’est bien le contrôle sur l’infrastructure qui constitue la dernière garantie de l’applicabilité du droit. / Satellites registration is a mechanism of international space law. Article VIII of the 1967 Space Treaty and the 1975 Convention on the Registration of Space Objects are the two main treaties establishing it. Many States specify its scope, modalities and range in their national legislations. This is the case of France, which provides for this mechanism in its municipal law on space operations of 2008 and its implementing texts. Registration establishes a link between a State and a space object. In particular, the functioning satellites are the subject of this analysis. This connecting link attributes "jurisdiction and control" over the object, the meaning of which was to be understood. It can be asserted as a synonymous with competence in a general sense. Nonetheless, it also refers to a duty of technical supervision of activities in outer space from the State, which proceeds to the registration. This preserves a fundamental norm of outer space law, the freedom of access to outer space by all States. Putting these standards in place prevents these inherently dangerous activities from being harmful. This freedom of access to an area not subject to territorial jurisdiction is a corollary of the sovereignty of States. This freedom does not come without challenges. The evolution of activities in shared spaces, such as outer space, the high seas or the airspace above it contributes to the phenomenon of intensification of uses. Outer space knows indeed a more and more intense utilization. The space sector provides high-demand services, which are now essential to society. In particular, we can mention remote sensing, telecommunications and positioning systems. As a result, satellites are part of the digitization movement of the economy. Outer space is therefore be considered as a scarce resource, as is already the radio spectrum, essential for communications with satellites. In an increasingly competitive environment, the tendency to optimize the choice of the applicable law can be a saving factor, sometimes to the detriment of the safety of the activities. Maritime law knows this phenomenon with flags of convenience. The evolution of space activities must therefore take this risk into consideration. In this context, registration is a fundamental mechanism. On the one hand, for reasons of material safety. It makes it possible to ensure that the satellite operator is under State supervision. While this mechanism cannot for the moment be easily circumvented by the responsibility attached to the status of launching State, it must nevertheless be pointed out that it is a legacy from the earliest days of space activities. It does not quite correspond to the current dynamics of these activities. On the other hand, for reasons of applicability of the law to digital spaces. Indeed satellites are digital infrastructures. Considering the fluid nature of these activities, it is the control over the infrastructure that constitutes the last guarantee of the applicability of the law.

This master thesis deals with the approaches of international actors, especially UN, EU and USA, to the concept of failed states, which are demonstrated on the illustrative example of a state of this category, i.e. Somalia. We think of failed states as a security threat, with which the international community provisionally cannot deal. The master thesis discusses how the international actors deal with this issue in terms of its solution and how they think of the failed states in terms of sovereignty. On the selected case of Somalia it is subsequently illustrated that approaches of selected international actors are not very heterogeneous. The international community agrees to support the central government, although it is not recognized in the whole territory of the state, and endeavors to rebuild a functional state. Although the state is internally totally dysfunctional, its external sovereignty is still recognized.

The thesis applies the neomedieval theoretical framework on the contemporary political map of the world. The thesis argues, that the contemporary international politics cannot be understood by an application of the unified geopolitical setting and that the key divergencies in the geopolitical environment play a crucial role for the actors operating in different regions. As an outcome of the theoretical works dealing with the selected theory, a three-world model is being presented dividing the political map among these settings - Durable Disorder (defined by networking and privatization), Westphalian System (defined by a dominant position of strong centralized state), and Chaotic Anarchy (lacking stable political power and control over means of violence). This model is consequently applied on the global political map with the consequent analysis of the strategies of different actors located inside specific environments and mutual interactions of these three worlds.

The thesis deals with the general problematic aspects of posting workers within the European Union in connection with the European Commission's proposal for a revision of Directive 96/71/EC and analyses the structure of selected discourse in the debate on the given proposal. Posting, in this thesis, is regarded as a specific manifestation of the phenomenon of deterritorialization, with an emphasis on posting workers to the Czech Republic. The phenomenon of deterritorialization is considered here in three basic forms: firstly, as the deterritorialization of the modern (European) state, secondly as the deterritorialization of its borders, and thirdly as the deterritorialization of labour. The thesis employs the method of critical discourse analysis and the discourse-historical approach developed by Ruth Wodak. It focuses on an analysis of the social, historical and political context of the issue of posting workers using selected theories dealing with the phenomenon of deterritorialization and posting workers in the EU. The main part of the thesis is an analysis of the reactions and discourse strategies of selected Czech stakeholders regarding the proposal for a revision of Directive 96/71/EC, in particular that of selected government representatives. The aim of the thesis is to demonstrate, using the...

L’imbrication du divin et du religieux, d’une part, du droit et notamment du droit international d’autre part, est un sujet dont l’actualité frappe l’observateur. Après des décennies pendant lesquelles la sécularisation et la fin de l’histoire ont pu masquer une telle imbrication, cette dernière est brusquement réapparue à l’œil occidental au début du XXIème siècle. Un examen plus attentif démontre que le retrait du divin et du religieux de la sphère juridique était une impression essentiellement ressentie dans l’Occident des deux derniers siècles, sans concerner de manière identique tous les États ni chacun d’entre eux dans l’ordre interne.Si l’accent est mis sur la Bible plutôt que sur les textes sacrés d’autres religions, c’est précisément parce qu’elle a influencé l’Occident, c’est-à-dire l’espace géographique et intellectuel où est né le mouvement de sécularisation. C’est dans cet espace que les concepts d’État et de souveraineté, centraux pour le droit international contemporain, ont vu le jour. L’un comme l’autre sont influencé par la lecture du texte biblique, et la perspective chrétienne est ici présentée en même temps que la perspective juive. Ces deux visions différentes ont nourri des débats, dont l’un opposa de manière fort polémique deux penseurs juridiques majeurs du XXème siècle. Cette polémique illustre les limites du mouvement intellectuel de sécularisation, mouvement qui intéresse au premier chef le droit public interne et le droit international.En réalité, la sécularisation n’empêche pas l’État de figurer comme une nouvelle forme de divinité, dont les bienfaits dispensés aux citoyens se nomment « providence » et dont l’expression principale du contrat social, la constitution, comprend dans de nombreux cas des références explicites au divin et à la religion. Ces dernières sont encore davantage mises en avant dans le cas particulier des relations israélo-pontificales, deux États tributaires de la Bible dans des proportions différentes et dans des interprétations qui ont longtemps empêché la reconnaissance de l’un par l’autre. Là encore, divin et religieux continuent d’imprégner le droit international / The interweaving of divine and religious, on one hand, of law and noticeably of international law on the other hand, is a matter which topicality hits the observer. After decades during which secularisation and the end of History may have hidden such an interweaving, the latter suddenly came back to appear to the Western eye at the beginning of the 21st century. A more careful examination demonstrates that the withdrawal of divine and religious from the law field was an impression mainly felt in the last two centuries West: it did not affect identically all state and, inside, all of the states. If it is insisted in this work on the Bible, more than in the sacred texts of other religions, it is precisely because the Bible influenced the West, which is the geographical and intellectual area where the secularisation movement was born. It is in this area that central concepts of international law, as state and sovereignty, dawned. Both two concepts are influenced by the reading of the Biblical text, and the Christian viewpoint is presented here as well as the Jewish viewpoint. Both those viewpoints have fed debates, of which one opposed controversially two of the major 20th Century law philosophers. This controversy illustrates the limits of the intellectual movement of secularisation, which interests first and foremost national public law and international law. As a matter of fact, secularisation does not prevent state to figure itself as a new shape of divinity, which goods offered to the citizens are called welfare (“providence” in French). The main expression of the social contract, the Constitution, includes in numerous cases explicit references to divine and to religion. Those are even more underlined in the particular case of the relations between Israel and the Holy See, two states owe much to the Bible, though in different scales and in interpretations that have long lastingly prevented the recognising of one by the other. There again, divine and religious go on imprinting public and international law

This thesis builds on the Indigenous Health Research Group’s work with northern remote Indigenous communities addressing food security challenges through local food initiatives. The focus will be on the efforts the Moose Cree First Nation in northern Ontario is taking to build local food capacity by introducing community gardening. This thesis applies a participatory action research approach, and its purpose is to provide: 1) an ethnographic description of the creation of local food initiatives in the Moose Cree First Nation; and 2) online monitoring of the resilience of these local food initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic, and an analysis of the purpose(s) of local food initiatives. Fieldwork for this thesis was conducted in 2019 and a Zoom interview with the Moose Cree Local Food Developer was conducted in 2022. In essence, this research points to the relevance and importance of local food initiatives for remote Indigenous communities who are looking to improve health and wellness, increase food diversity, make fresh produce more accessible in terms of price and availability, and work towards gaining more control over their own local food system.

Magister Theologiae - MTh / In this minithesis, I argue that the prime reason of the Deuteronomistic Historian (Dtr) for inserting the incomparability of God in Solomon's prayer is to convey his (Dtr's) theological interpretation of the history of Israel as history controlled by her sovereign God, Yahweh. Other reasons are also considered. In order to argue the main reason and others, the sociohistorical aspects of the Davidic-Solomonic era are briefly highlighted as well as the Deuteronomistic Historian, his time and theology. A closer look at the Babylonian exile shows the significance of this event in terms of the theological thought of Dtr conveyed in the passage 1 Ki. 8:23-26 and the rest of Solomon's prayer. A brief exploration of the theme "The Incomparability of Yahweh" as seen in the Deuteronomistic History is then undertaken to acquire a full comprehension of the incomparability formula within the Deuteronomistic writings. This also helps to place the formula within its immediate context, i.e. the passage and the prayer itself, and within its broader context, viz., the Deuteronomistic writings An exegesis of 1 Ki. 8:23-26 is undertaken giving further rise to lexical data leading to major themes. This critical exegesis, the lexical data and major themes lead to the postulation of the assumed reasons for the insertion of the incomparability formula by Dtr. Arguments for each reason are then put forth culminating in my argument that Dtr wants to conveys his theological interpretation of the history of Israel as history controlled by her sovereign God, Yahweh. The minithesis is concluded with an overview, reflections and theological perspectives of Dtr gleaned especially from the postulated reasons. Finally, this research shows the actuality of Dtr's theological thoughts for his time as well as for today's readers, especially in terms of the sovereignty of God, his hesed for his people and the motif of conditionality expressed in the Deuteronomistic theology permeating Solomon's prayer.

In recent years, the EU has been facing more crises than ever before, a trend that most likely will not be broken. Over the last few years, we have seen an economic crisis, migration crisis and a pandemic to name a few. With every new crisis where there is no set agenda on how to act member states are presented with a choice of either take the matter in their own hand and go-it-alone or pursue integration and cooperation. With each member state being able to chose there is potential for the cooperation to become strained. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to understand the choice of go-it-alone or integration in a context of the nexus of state sovereignty/integration. The nexus will be used to understand the choices of Estonia and Hungary during the Migration crisis and Covid-19 pandemic.  The study was conducted by making use of a qualitative comparative approach of Estonia and Hungary. To engage with the concept of sovereignty four criteria were established from previous theory, Intergovernmentalism and Neofunctionalism. Each perspective was constructed into a pole structured ideal type to allow for analysis based on official governmental material, such as press releases.  The results show that the nexus ’state sovereignty/integration’ can explain the choices made of Estonia and Hungary to either go-it-alone or cooperate. The results show that Estonia was more likely to, in times of crisis, approach integration, but only slightly. Hungary on the other hand was more likely to go-it-alone.