I am speaking today on behalf of five international human rights organizations -Amnesty International, La Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH), the Friends World Committee for Consultation (Quakers), Rights and Democracy, and the Netherlands Centre for Indigenous Peoples (NCIV).
Our organizations share a common concern for the timely adoption of strong and effective international standards to respect, protect and promote the human rights of Indigenous peoples.
In every region of the world, Indigenous peoples are subject to pervasive violations of their fundamental rights. These violations threaten the security and well being of countless indigenous women, men and children around the world. These violations also jeopardize the very survival of indigenous cultures and nations.
The pervasiveness of such violations is an affront to the global human rights system and to its underlying principles of human dignity and equality.
Speaking at the third session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on May 12, 2004, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the only response to the grave threats facing indigenous peoples "must be to confront them without delay."
Sadly, the single most important initiative to advance the rights of Indigenous peoples within the international community has, in fact, been much delayed.
After ten years of deliberation in the open-ended inter-sessional Working Group, only two articles of the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples have been provisionally adopted.
Given the urgent need for strong and effective protections for indigenous peoples, the slow progress toward adoption of the draft Declaration is utterly unacceptable.
Unacceptable, but not inevitable.
During the 10th session of the Working Group this past fall, we welcomed the greatly improved spirit of dialogue among representatives of states and indigenous peoples. At the end of the session, the indigenous caucus and the Norwegian delegation were able to identify a significant slate of articles now considered ready for provisional adoption. Furthermore, representatives of states and Indigenous peoples worked together effectively during informal working parties and were able to make significant progress toward finding common ground on key outstanding issues. A proposal by the indigenous caucus on one of these key issues, the right of self determination, was strongly endorsed by a number of states.
Even more significant is the fact that during the ten years that the draft Declaration has been under debate in the Working Group, there has been considerable progress toward recognition and protection of the human rights of indigenous peoples within the international human rights system as a whole.
UN treaty bodies have repeatedly affirmed that state obligations under widely ratified human rights instruments require protection of the collective human rights of indigenous peoples. Time and again, these treaty bodies have called on states to recognize, respect and uphold the right of indigenous peoples to maintain their distinct cultures and ways of living, to have control over their own futures, and to have secure access to the lands and territories necessary to fulfill their human rights.
In our opinion, many of the state objections that have delayed adoption of the draft Declaration could be readily resolved if states were to re-examine these objections in light of their current responsibilities to uphold and promote the rights of indigenous peoples as interpreted by the UN treaty bodies.
The development of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples represents an opportunity to affirm with a clear voice an already emerging international standard for the protection of the human rights of indigenous peoples. The meetings of the Working Group have provided a useful forum for states and indigenous peoples to work together in order to better understand how to elaborate these rights in a consistent and coherent manner. The direct participation of indigenous peoples in this standard setting process is an historic achievement that must be applauded.
To move forward, however, it is clear that the working group needs more time - and a stronger commitment on the part of the international community.
We urge the Commission to demonstrate this commitment by adopting a resolution that:
urges governments to work cooperatively with indigenous peoples to bring the development of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to successful conclusion;
and toward this end, ensures the full participation of indigenous peoples in the continuation of a constructive standard-setting process.
The widespread dispossession, impoverishment and victimization of Indigenous peoples in every region of the world has been well documented. As human rights organizations we stress the urgent need for the members of the Commission to treat recognition and protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights as a central human rights concern and to commit to the timely adoption of the Declaration as a critical priority.
We welcome the recommendation of the High Commissioner for Human Rights who has called for six weeks of meetings over two years as well as an improved process for the working group. We believe this recommendation strikes an appropriate balance between the urgency of advancing the Declaration and a realistic assessment of the work that remains to be done.
It is our understanding, however, that many states favour renewing the working group’s mandate for only a single year at this session of the Commission. We urge states to ensure that the standard setting process is not ended prematurely when the potential for consensus on this urgently needed human rights standard is within reach.
Whether the Commission adopts the High Commissioner’s recommendation or chooses to renew the mandate of the working group for a shorter period, we urge states to take measures to ensure the continued full and effective participation of Indigenous peoples in this process.
It is our understanding that, on the urging of some indigenous peoples’ organizations, states are considering an option to delay resumption of the working group while other processes such as expert seminars are held. We support the idea that alternative processes should be explored to support the more effective development of consensus among states and indigenous peoples. In particular, we believe that the successful conclusion of this process would benefit from a wider understanding of the legal and technical issues of the relationship between the declaration and other international legal instruments and standards, including established and emerging standards for the protection of the human rights of indigenous peoples. We are concerned, however, by the possibility that the work of developing the Declaration could go unfinished or may be unnecessarily delayed. Therefore, we urge that the resolution include a specific commitment to hold the next working group session no later than 2006.
We welcome Mexico’s offer to host a seminar or special session to development consensus on the crucial theme of lands, territories and resources. We urge the Commission to ensure the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples in any such seminar or special session.