Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Alberta’s Oil Sands: The Roles of Corporations and the State

Corporate actors are increasingly becoming powerful entities in this era of globalization. While the state remains the primary duty bearer in protecting and realizing the rights of its citizens, corporations now have an increased role in this regard. Voluntary mechanisms guiding corporate conduct have emerged to address this fact. In Canada’s Athabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake regions, oil corporations have the increased challenge of operating on the traditional land of indigenous populations, who have been marginalized since colonization. While many indigenous groups seek protect their traditional lifestyle, activities by oil corporations seem to undermine this effort. Human rights and social responsibility norms are increasingly found in corporate policies. Yet the forms which these take are contested and considered unsatisfactory by some. This thesis seeks to identify to what extent corporations have accepted human rights and social responsibility norms, to evaluate whether norm acceptance can be clearly related to performance, to see if actions taken by oil corporations guarantee that indigenous rights are protected and determine what actions the provincial and federal governments can undertake to further complement corporate efforts.