The Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the gem of the international indigenous movement, is the important long-term international work by thousands of Native delegates to the United Nations over nearly 30 years. Since 1977, when for the first time indigenous peoples gained a toehold of recognition from the international community, this ever-evolving document of 19 preambular paragraphs, nine sections and 45 articles has been the bastioned goal for establishing new covenants to protect indigenous peoples.
The idea that ''their aspirations should be enshrined in a new instrument'' of international law, which surfaced to full discussion even at that early conference, was central to the movement that took the indigenous voice to the United Nations.
Those aspirations were placed on hold, as United States, New Zealand and Australia objected vigorously to the language of the declaration during debates at the 11th session of the U.N. Working Group on the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
While many countries participating in the session have agreed to recognize a genuine right of self-determination for indigenous peoples, some fear that indigenous nations may try to secede and form independent countries. Deliberations are continuing on how to assure countries like the United States, Indonesia, China, New Zealand and Australia that indigenous nations will not disrupt their territorial integrity - a legal principle that holds no group has a legal right to break away and form an independent country.
Many years of work could be set back against the establishment of significant international covenants if the Human Rights Commission denies consensus in the next two to three years. Unless U.S. opposition is turned into a strong commitment to the self-governance and self-determination of American Indian tribal nations, the declaration will die a slow death. The United States must be urged to support in this case the guarantee of Indian rights.
The right of self-determination is a major item in the declaration. The assertion that Native peoples are definable under the principle of self-determination is a heated one. The fear that self-determination will lead to the right to secede from particular nation-states worries these governments a great deal. This fear is more fancy than reality, as most Native nations are already intertwined in varying degrees with the economic, social and political structures of nation-states.
The declaration reads, in Part 1, Article 3: ''Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.''
Other articles express the right ''to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, economic, social and cultural characteristics, as well as their legal systems, while retaining their rights to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.''
The North American Indian delegates to the 1977 U.N. conference complained that Congress had such plenary power over the Indian nations that no rights at all could be taken for granted. As international and Indian law attorney, Robert (Tim) Coulter reminded the various chiefs' delegations during the session, in the legal sense, Indian tribal nations in the United States are at the complete mercy of Congress. While social and historical, as well as legal, precedents play a role in shaping national U.S. Indian policy, the Native peoples were in dire need to generate a body of law to cement their rights. ''If the state or national governments are the judges of our lands and resources, it's the same old foxes guarding the chicken-house,'' stated an Indian editorial from that era.
The argument by U.S.-based American Indian nations and their lawyers that indigenous peoples - as distinct groups - were without protections in their home countries and required attention internationally resonated with the aspirations of representatives of indigenous peoples in Central and South America, and ultimately hundreds of indigenous nations globally.
In many countries, such as Brazil, only constant pressure on the government will mobilize it to protect isolated tribal groups, which nevertheless possess lands traditionally and which, under any fair sense of property ownership, would have protected such territories. Brazil, still with previously un-contacted indigenous nations to honor and protect, has been a strong advocate for Indian tribal self-determination during this debate.
Over the long haul, the Native representatives have intensely supported the adoption of U.N. ''instruments'' so as to ''give the clearest indication that the international community is committing itself to the protection of the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples.'' At the international level, for peoples who were completely shut out of so-called civilized nationhood just 30 years ago, such a process necessarily began with a ''declaration'' that would be debated for three decades through the multi-layered system of the United Nations.
The discussion took place first among indigenous organizations, with the nation-states as observers. It is presently at the Human Rights Commission, being negotiated directly by the nation-states but in consultation with the Native delegations. It has been a long road and the definitive step would be its adoption by the General Assembly.
The 30-year international discussion on indigenous peoples' issues has led to numerous fruitful partnerships, particularly with human rights and community development institutions. In Brazil's Rio Pardo region, precisely because of a timely and loud international outcry, by early December the national government was vigorously arresting the organized thugs from encroaching operations of illegal land speculators. These gangs had been systematically killing isolated Indian bands in order to clear the title for private enterprises. Thus, because of the international work of the past 30 years, de facto, people of conscience can weigh in on the side of the survival of tribal peoples.
The draft of ''principles,'' first penned by Coulter in 1977 in consultation with traditional chiefs, clan mothers and headmen from various nations, gained increased formality in 1985 when its promised road of eventual adoption and proclamation by the General Assembly was initiated in the Working Group on Indigenous Populations. The group submitted its version of the text to the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, which adopted it in 1994 and submitted it in turn to the Commission on Human Rights. In 1995, the Working Group on the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was formed and immediately instituted changes that allowed the participation of some 100 indigenous peoples in the open-ended ''inter-sessional'' discussions.
The present declaration draft is the result of 10 years of such work, which successfully placed indigenous peoples in the context of the universal process of de-colonization recognized by the international community. It has taken a considerable effort to pursue the indigenous rights goals through the labyrinthine U.N. system. If the United States would stand up to its promise to the Native peoples in the international context, Indian country could certainly regain more of its proper footing in American jurisprudence, which has gone seriously astray.
All tribal leaders in the United States are urged to contact the White House and urge President George W. Bush to instruct the legal department at the U.S. State Department to urge the adoption of the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to support a positive vote for it at the level of the General Assembly of the United Nations. The United States has, in recent decades, begun to implement a steady (if still shy) policy of self-governance for Native tribal nations. Considering the malaise across the world currently blamed on the United States, merited or not, a good case can be made that any reasonable American approach to tribal peoples' peaceful reach for self-determination is worth featuring and supporting in international processes.
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