Past injustice and contemporary claims : a normative inquiry of historical rights and grounds for indigenous minorities' clamis for ownership of land and resources
Year: 2005
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Abstarct:\n\nThe purpose of this thesis is to examine the normative grounds for indigenous minorities’ claims for ownership of inherited land areas and usufruct of natural resources. When investigating the field of grounding property rights it is possible to recognise two broad normative approaches. One is historical rights theory, while the second is grounded on premises pertaining to human needs. The major questions I seek to enlighten in this thesis is the following: Do indigenous groups have historical rights to land and resources in their traditional homelands, or do such rights have to be justified on needs such as belonging to a certain cultural society? \n\nA major conclusion is that the historical approach, as endorsed by philosophers like Robert Nozick, is being both anti-social and unacceptable due to the epistemological uncertainty that seems to be an inescapable part of backward-looking reasoning. Questions concerning historical injustice must take into account that time and social change may weaken someone’s rights to property. Property rights are consequently not intrinsic or unbreakable as Nozick seems to believe, but instead flexible and dependent on social circumstances. However, it is possible to that the ill that was performed some time in the past remains as a kind of persisting injustice and that indigenous minorities who lives today may have reasonable claims due to a wrongdoing that exist now. By this token property rights is grounded on forward-looking terms. \n\nAs a result of the rejection of the historical approach I am putting forward an alternative, prima facie justification of indigenous peoples’ rights to ownership of land and resources. Major premises in this way or reasoning is that collective property rights are regarded as valued state of affairs and part of peoples particularistic or subjective interests – interests that pertains to human well-being and peoples rights to attain to certain cultural practises. In addition to an argument about property as a subjective good I endorse indigenous peoples’ cultural commitments as a decisive role when members of such groups try to structure their position in society and seek to accomplish legitimate expectations in life.
Author: John Kenneth Stigum
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2225755762