In this chapter, I demonstrate that Hegel removes three Kantian obstacles that stand in the way of an elaboration of autonomy as a form of life. Hegel rearticulates the form of autonomy in such a way that we can recognize living beings as a basic case of autonomy. Secondly, Hegel shows that internal purposiveness is not a derivative concept, making positive knowledge of natural purposiveness intelligible. Thirdly, Hegel provides a positive account of the lived reality of freedom. Taken together, these shifts open up the possibility of understanding practical autonomy not just as analogous to living self-organization but as an actual form of living self-organization. The second half of the chapter shows how this account is underwritten by Hegel’s new understanding of the distinction between the realm of nature and of freedom. By reference to Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature, the chapter shows how he modifies Kant’s distinction in crucial ways. Firstly, he gives a new substantive account of the realm of nature, revealing how it includes a form of natural freedom. Secondly, Hegel clarifies that the realms of freedom and nature are not externally juxtaposed and argues that the differentiation of these two realms is internal to spirit. Thirdly, Hegel considers the ways in which spirit reproduces the forms of a realm of nature within itself in the shape of a second nature.

This chapter examines Indigenous nation-building as a critical strategy for bridging gaps between policy intent and meaningful connection to Country, focusing on the Western Australian Aboriginal Empowerment Strategy. It highlights persistent disparities stemming from settler-colonial governance, where institutions often fail to address Indigenous cultural, social, economic, and ecological priorities. The analysis shows how empowerment efforts encounter resistance when they challenge entrenched power dynamics, reflecting systemic reluctance toward transformative change. In contrast, Indigenous nation-building provides a self-determined framework for governance, development, and community empowerment rooted in Aboriginal worldviews. The chapter assesses Western Australia’s Closing the Gap Implementation Plan 2023–2025 through this lens, underscoring the importance of cultural integrity, truth-telling, genuine partnerships, and shared decision-making. It concludes with recommendations for institutional reform, arguing that only deep systemic change can deliver equity and improved outcomes for Aboriginal communities.

This chapter characterizes the five central themes that emerged from and unite the contributions to this book. It clarifies how the contributors characterized a defining conundrum of Black poetry, traces its intellectual interventions and its communal sensibilites, identifies its innovative origins and emphasis on syncretism, and captures its artistic beauties. And it clarifies how the contributors characterize the growing influence of African American poets in determining the terms of literary value in US literary culture. It verifies the expertise by which these essays validate African American poetry as a distincitve tradition and as an aspect of a US national tradition which it both critiques and enhances.

This chapter explores Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled health services (ACCHOS) and looks at the important role they play in improving health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is difficult to understand the Aboriginal community-controlled health sector of today without considering how the sector developed. This chapter therefore outlines the conception and establishment of the services and the political realities facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at the time of their commencement. This chapter is organised around a case study of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Service in Brisbane, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023. To complement the case study, the chapter includes an overview of the governance structures of the community-controlled sector, as this is an area that can be difficult for health professionals to understand. The scenarios, case studies and reflective questions focus on experiences that nurses and midwives might have working in an Aboriginal community-controlled health service.

This chapter focuses on the law relating to sovereign territory. The concepts of territory and of territorial sovereignty are examined. The manner in which additional territory may be acquired is analysed. Mechanisms such as boundary treaties and boundary awards are noted, and then the methods of acquisition are discussed. These include an analysis of discovery, accretion, cession, the former use of force and conquest, and the exercise of effective control, including occupation of terra nullius and prescription. The impact of the concepts of the critical date and intertemporal law is noted. Attention then turns to the role of subsequent conduct, such as recognition, acquiescence and estoppel. The principles of territorial integrity and of self-determination in this context are then discussed, together with the doctrine of uti possidetis, both as to the colonial context and more generally. The role of subsequent practice is noted and the importance of sovereign effective control in the circumstances (‘effectivités’). The chapter continues by noting the relevance of leases and servitudes, then turns to international boundary rivers, and then the polar regions. The chapter concludes with a section on the law of outer space.

This chapter deals with the subjects of international law. The meaning of international legal personality is noted. The primary subject of the international system is the state and the conditions for the creation of statehood are examined (permanent population, defined territory, government and capacity to enter into relations with other states). Each of these conditions is examined. The role of self-determination in the context of the criteria of statehood is discussed, as is the function of recognition. The fundamental rights of states, such as independence and equality are noted. There then follow sections on particular kinds of states, such as protectorates and federal states, and then sui generis territorial entities, for example, mandated and trust territories in the past, territories under international administration, and entities of disputed status such as Taiwan, the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic, Kosovo and Palestine. Special cases such as the Sovereign Order of Malta, the Holy See and the Vatican City, and international corporations are covered before the right of peoples to self-determination is examined.

This chapter examines international humanitarian law or the laws of war or the laws of armed conflict. Its development is briefly traced and its substance based upon the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 examined. These cover the principles concerning the wounded and sick on land and on sea, the treatment of prisoners of war, and the protection of civilians in times of war. The scope and meaning of occupation is examined, ranging from the start of such occupation, the rights and duties of the occupying power and its cessation. In this context, the principles of self-determination and non-annexation of territory are noted. The relationship between international humanitarian law and international human rights law is then examined, followed by an analysis of the rules governing the conduct of hostilities. The status of non-international armed conflicts is considered, and then follows a survey of the pertinent principles governing cyber warfare. The chapter concludes with a look at the enforcement of international humanitarian law.

This chapter offers an historical examination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander healthcare from a nursing viewpoint. It considers how the current shape of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health has been formed by actions taken since European colonisation. It discusses the status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health during different historical periods, including what is known about the pre-invasion health system and health service provision during the periods of initial contact, separation and protection. Finally, the chapter discusses the rise of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled health system and contemporary choices for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the delivery of healthcare and health outcomes. It further discusses the approach taken by all Australian governments of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, communities and organisations to implement the new National Agreement on Closing the Gap at the national, state and territory, and local levels. Each section of this chapter is framed within the prism of nursing, exploring the role of nursing in health systems and the delivery of healthcare.

Australia’s First Nations peoples are a collection of multiple language groups; they are the sovereign peoples of the lands and waterways of their countries, which are now confined within the boundaries of the modern-day colonial nation-state of Australia. Torres Strait Islanders (Islanders) are a collection of First Nations peoples from the region commonly known as the Torres Strait, which for Islanders is increasingly being reclaimed and renown as Zenadth Kes. The assertion of using the local name instead of the colonial name is an exercise of sovereignty. The reclaiming of places through knowing their local name is an important part of truth-telling and decolonising Country. This chapter invites you to learn more about Zenadth Kes and the people who belong to it. Specifically, in keeping with cultural safety, this chapter aims to highlight the limitations of the colonial perceptions of Islanders. These imaginations of Islanders have historically informed what opportunities were afforded to them. This includes equitable access to health inclusive of social and cultural determinants of health, compared with that of non-Indigenous Australians.Today, Islanders reside all over Australia.

World War I revealed a German imperialist project of eastern expansion, whose dizzying success and equally sudden failure lastingly destabilized international politics. Resulting patterns of nationalist grievance and assertiveness, matching greater-national revanchism to national-minority predicaments, proved impossible to manage or contain. In registering the collapse of the prewar multinational empires (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Ottoman Turkey), the Treaty of Versailles and its supplements redistributed territorial-political sovereignty among freshly constituted republican nation-states (“successor states”), in an international system to be guaranteed by the League of Nations. Launched by Lenin and coopted by Woodrow Wilson, the discourse of “national self-determination” only imperfectly described this European state-making conjuncture. At the same time, it inspired newly emergent anti-colonial nationalisms in the extra-European imperial world. Each effect seeded problems for the future.

Chapter 5, “Envisioning a Plurinational Governance”, analyzes the role and aspirations of Indigenous peoples in the international governance of the Amazon. Based on the analysis of COICA international politics and ACTO strategies and actions regarding Indigenous peoples, the Chapter argues that the international governance of the Amazon has excluded Indigenous peoples by recognizing a limited version of self-determination with no political rights. Many ACTO officials reject the possibility of having the representativeness of Indigenous peoples in the deliberative processes of the organization. However, the continued indigenous activism has opened new opportunities for institutionalizing their participation within ACTO. Despite ACTO’s political weakness and the different institutional challenges of COICA, Indigenous peoples struggle to decolonize the international governance of the Amazon and enact what would be a plurinational international governance.

This chapter first discusses the main subjects of international law and explains their principal features. It then zooms in on states, the traditional and principal actors in the international legal system. It discusses the criteria for statehood under international law, the role that recognition plays in this respect, and how new states emerge. Finally, this chapter turns to an analysis of the right to self-determination, a notion that plays an important role in the creation of states and is considered to be the most prominent right of one of the subjects of international law: people.