BeFriending Creation
UN adopts Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Great news! The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. On September 13, 2007, the world's only representative body endorsed, by an overwhelming majority, the principle that those sometimes referred to as First People have the same rights as everyone else on the planet.
This is a victory we can heartily cheer. At the UN, the Indigenous Peoples' voice speaks for their cause as inseparable from the nurturing land where they live and as a spiritual matter. Their victory is a victory for all of us and for the planet we love.
The Declaration is not a treaty, and violations cannot be brought to any court. It is an "aspirational human rights instrument" that will be held up as an agreed goal for all countries. Like the Declaration on the Rights of the Child, it will be referred to, and over time will increase in influence.
Although the Declaration gives Indigenous Peoples no rights beyond what are internationally recognized, it has faced formidable opposition—particularly from extractive industries, including water mining, and from agri-businesses, which want to turn indigenous peoples' small farms and forests into huge one-crop plantations and bio-fuel crops.
Indigenous peoples are scattered around the globe, are usually very poor, and live in remote areas. Through the UN, over the last 20 years they have made contact with each other and clarified their common ground. The process still was "lengthy and frustrating," due both to differences among the Peoples' own cultures and differences in the laws, customs, etc. of the dominant societies of the countries where they live.
Drafting the Declaration took 20 years of hard work, after which came a series of bureaucratic hurdles. It had to be approved by the UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and the UN Third Committee before it could come to the General Assembly. And there was opposition at every step, including a procedural loophole that a bloc of nations used to try to prevent it from coming to a vote.
The Indigenous Peoples Caucus got to work, lobbying strongly all spring and summer. One month to the day before the Declaration was to be considered, four governments submitted a "Non-Paper" to the General Assembly, requesting specific, disastrous, changes to the Draft. References to "free, prior and informed consent" were deleted, and language was added to establish the primacy of other laws and priorities over indigenous decisions.
On September 1, 2007, word went out that an agreement had been reached over an amended version of the Declaration. No Indigenous representatives had participated in the amending.
The Caucus undertook an urgent consultation with Indigenous Peoples' delegations to determine whether they could live with the amendments. They emphasized that "the States that are bound in this agreement will represent a clear majority of the UN members and it will guarantee adoption…." Although some Indigenous groups felt that to go along with this was tantamount to submitting once again to colonial rule, in the end they were able to support the amended Declaration.
The final version is very close to the original and includes none of the language introduced by the four governments' "Non-Paper"!
(I checked this personally.) The General Assembly vote was 143 nations in favor, 4 opposed, and 11 abstentions. The four opposed were the Untied States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Beneficial use of this non- Treaty has already begun. Only days after the Declaration was adopted the New Zealand Human Rights Council issued a statement of their intention to use the Declaration, in spite of the vote against it by the government of New Zealand.
A week later an agency of the Australian state of Victoria announced, "Australia's refusal to support the Declaration does not preclude it from having relevance domestically.... The Declaration will prove an invaluable resource in understanding how the rights of indigenous people can be best served" (Dr. Helen Szoke, chief executive of the Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission).
Citizens of two of the four opposing nations have spoken up, and people from the United States and Canada will not be unheard from. Keep your ears open… and be ready to speak up too. •
