Review of Sovereignty: The Biography of a Claim

Peter H. Russel opens Sovereignty: The Biograph of a Claim with two occasions that would bring him into conversation with the Dene Nation. The first occurs in 1974 when James Washee, then Grand Chief, contacts Russel seeking consultation on Canada’s constitutional government and Dene efforts to draft a Declaration asserting their rights as a sovereign nation. This experience leads him to conclude that sovereignty is a claim, which should be understood as a “a relationship, not a thing” (10). And, as he states, in the context of the nation-state this claim works to legitimate an absolutist form of governing power based on (internal and external) territorial recognition. The second event that Russel describes occurs in 1999 when he is asked to serve as “Canada’s envoy” to the Dene Nation. As envoy, he is tasked with producing a statement of shared environmental and governing principles that would be supported by both the Deh Cho Dene and Canada. While twenty-one principles could be agreed upon, it was the disagreement over sovereignty that returns Russel’s attention to this subject, stating that sovereignty does the “pernicious work of preventing an Indigenous people from sharing its territory with Canadians in ways that take into account its interests and respect its principles” (9). Here Russel goes on to argue that the solution to limiting these harmful consequences is a robust federalism that can check the claims of absolutism by dividing governing power.