Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples

On September 13th, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a landmark declaration outlining the rights of the world’s estimated 370 million indigenous peoples and outlawing discrimination against them – a move that followed 22 years of contentious negotiations.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/indigenous/docs/draftdeclaration.pdf)  has been approved after 143 Member States voted in favour, 11 abstained and four voted against the text.
 
A non-binding text, the Declaration sets out the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples, as well as their rights to culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and other issues.

The Declaration emphasises the rights of indigenous peoples to maintain and strengthen their own institutions, cultures and traditions and to pursue their development in keeping with their own needs and aspirations.

It also prohibits discrimination against indigenous peoples and promotes their full and effective participation in all matters that concern them, and their right to remain distinct and to pursue their own visions of economic and social development.

The Human Rights Council adopted the Declaration in June 2006, over the objections of a handful of Member States,. However, the Assembly deferred consideration of the text late last year at the behest of African countries, co-sponsored by opposing States, which raised objections about language on self-determination and the definition of ‘indigenous’ peoples. During recent months, many efforts were made to meet these concerns resulting in a revised version of the text.

‘The importance of this document for indigenous peoples and, more broadly, for the human rights agenda, cannot be underestimated,’ said General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa.

But she warned that ‘even with this progress, indigenous peoples still face marginalisation, extreme poverty and other human rights violations. They are often dragged into conflicts and land disputes that threaten their way of life and very survival; and, suffer form a lack of access to health care and education.’

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, said the adoption of the Declaration ‘marks a major victory for indigenous peoples who actively took part in crafting this Declaration. The 13th of September 2007 will be remembered as an international human rights day for the indigenous peoples of the world, a day that the United Nations and its Member States, together with indigenous peoples, reconciled with past painful histories and decided to march into the future on the path of human rights.

This is a Declaration which sets the minimum international standards for the protection and promotion of the rights of indigenous peoples. Therefore, existing and future laws, policies and programmes on indigenous peoples will have to be redesigned and shaped to be consistent with this standard.’

She said the effective implementation of the Declaration would be the test of commitment of States and the whole international community to protect, respect and fulfil indigenous peoples’ collective and individual human rights.

Les Malezer, Coordinator of the Commonwealth Association of Indigenous Peoples and Chairperson of the Global Indigenous Caucus, said ‘Indigenous Peoples around the world shared a common situation of loss of control of our lands, territories and resources and a history of colonisation…These rights in the Declaration are already recognised in international law, but they are rights which have been denied to Indigenous Peoples everywhere.

‘Now that the Declaration has been adopted by the General Assembly’ he went on, ‘Indigenous Peoples can reasonably expect that the States will, if they do not already have such a relationship, form a collaborative and cooperative relationship with the representatives of the indigenous peoples to ensure that the rights contained in the Declaration are protected and promoted.’

He concluded, ‘This is the challenge for the future. With a Declaration now in place, affirming the rights of Indigenous Peoples, it will be important that States respond positively.’