Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Conflicts between indigenous groups and governments over the use and ownership of lands in North America have exposed hypocrisies about legality, property, human rights, and even democracy itself. These derive from tensions between historical acts of nation-to-nation recognition and governmental practice. This study examines the ongoing dispute surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota, USA in which I participated. I shall argue that the conflict at Standing Rock must be understood through a series of acts of state legitimized illegalities. These began with the purchase of unceded Sioux lands from France in 1803, several nineteenth century treaties between the US and the Sioux, and further unconsented legislative acts, and judicial rulings. The DAPL conflict culminated in the Executive Order of January 2017, but involved militarized police action to suppress peaceful protest and freedom of expression. Common to all these actions is a state of exception. Because the state of exception is institutionalized in American state treatment of indigenous populations, both indigenous human rights and American justice itself are impossible to honour.