We suspect that we aren’t the only people to return from a summer break to do a double-take at the news headlines. The President of the United States has cancelled a state visit to Denmark, because they had the cheek to snub his offer to buy Greenland. Indeed, it seems that they were really quite snotty about it, President Trump having described the Danish Prime Minister’s response as “nasty”. What could the problem possibly be? Surely, if Japan fancies buying Oregon, or Iceland decides that they would like to own Florida, all they need to do is ring the White House and pony up the cash. There’s nothing unusual about buying up a chunk of someone else’s sovereign State, and effectively giving an autonomous community the option of shipping out or living in a new country. It’s just a real estate deal, right?
We apologise for the somewhat flippant tone, but really, how else can anyone respond to such statements? We try to avoid doing politics with a capital “P” on this blog, although we, needless to say, have our own values and ideologies and do not claim to be completely neutral. It happens that Greenland is a subject which we are interested in writing about, so we could not refrain from blogging about this whole debacle. However, in explaining, from a legal and human rights standpoint, just how frankly offensive the proposal of Donald Trump on Greenland truly was, we are not attacking either the United States or even the wider Republican Party. We both admire the US and have recently returned from a wonderful academic trip. It is a fascinating, diverse and beautiful country, with an inspiring legal and constitutional tradition. It is also fair to note in passing, that citizens of many countries would not at the present time care to have their entire nation judged on the basis of their current political leaders and his/her actions.
So, having clarified this, why was this latest assertion from Donald Trump so deeply problematic? It is true that the United States has acquired territory by purchase in the past, as indeed have other nations. Nevertheless, the key words there were “in the past”. There is no hiding from the reality that the boundaries of many modern States are drawn where they are because our ancestors did things which would be unthinkable in the twenty-first century. Conquest, colonialism and the barter of territory, and even human beings, for economic gain, have all been common around the globe into the mists of prehistory, but obviously this does not mean that the international community now condones the habits of our predecessors.
States buying and selling territory is not comparable to parties within a State transferring ownership of land. Becoming part of a different State means entering into a fundamentally different legal paradigm, your basic rights, the rules regulating them and the institutions which guarantee all change. Clearly, an individual who moves to a different country and acquires citizenship within the new jurisdiction embraces such a change, but this is generally done voluntarily (we appreciate that where refugees are concerned, in reality there is little choice being exercised). Nonetheless, the prospect of an entire community being hived off is dramatically different. Even if the people involved retained their Danish citizenship, if they wanted to live under Danish, rather than US law, they would have to leave their island home.
The position is made even more complicated by the fact that the population of Greenland is a distinct People for the purposes of international law. They have a right to autonomy, which Denmark recognizes and they have been acquiring an ever increasing independence since the mid 20th century. Greenland is now essentially self-governing as far as domestic matters go, and it is possible that in the fullness of time it may choose to finally transition to full statehood. It is equally realistic that it will remain as a Partially Independent Territory within Denmark, but everyone in both Copenhagen and Nuuk (the Greenlandic capital) agrees that this is the democratic choice of the People of Greenland.
The issue is even more critical and sensitive when we recall that the population of Greenland is 90% Inuit in ethnic terms, as well as the long history of oppression and exploitation which indigenous peoples have faced. It is a regrettable indictment that in the current media furor, Greenlandic voices have had little exposure in the Anglophone press, particularly bearing in mind that their interests are at its centre. Nevertheless, the first woman to have served as Greenlandic Prime Minister, Aleqa Hammond, spoke eloquently on British television, and expressed the irony and injustice of Donald Trump discussing the future of Greenland, when he had only ever proposed a visited to mainland Denmark, and had no intention of even coming to see the territory.
Moreover, on the subject of collective concerns, there are the immense environmental questions at stake in all of this. Greenland is rich in mineral resources, including oil, which it is safe to say are motivating Trump far more than a fascination for reindeer. The choices which humanity makes together about our approach to the planet will have repercussions for all nations (and indeed species) for millennia, and given that the population of Greenland are already feeling the effects of climate change in dramatic and life-changing ways, there is ample reason to speculate that as an Arctic population, they would have good cause to resist being taken over by a climate-change denying regime.
Ultimately, there are some things which money cannot buy, but there are also things which it really should not buy. It is fortunate for everyone, except perhaps the aggrieved Mr Trump, that by global consensus, Greenland falls into both categories.
Related Articles
Pompeo praises ‘US ally’ Denmark after Trump cancels visit (BBC News 22/8/19)
‘I thought it was a joke’ Former Greenland PM on Donald Trump wanting to buy the country (Channel 4 News 21/8/19)
Donald Trump and Greenland: Why would he want to buy it? (BBC News 21/8/19)
