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The UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in an historic vote September 13, 2007. The Declaration was adopted by a substantial majority of nation states, with 143 voting in favor, 4 against, and 11 abstaining. The Declaration was forwarded to the General Assembly by the Human Rights Council last year. Center staff have worked with the many indigenous nations, tribes and communities we represent for over 30 years toward the adoption of this historic human rights instrument. Please follow the links below for more information.
Center Press Release Regarding Adoption of the Declaration
Unitd Nations Department of Public Information. September 14, 2007.
United Nations Press Release Regarding Adoption of the Declaration
Status of UN Declaration: How Tribes can Ensure their Human Rights are Recognized and Protected
by the staff of the Indian Law Resource Center, September 2007
Final text of UN Declaration as proposed by its 67 Co-Sponsors and adopted by General Assembly
This is the text of the Declaration as adopted, showing compromise amendments that were proposed by the 67 co-sponsors of the Declaration. The Declaration was adopted as amended here.
Human Rights Council Resolution 2006/2 - Forwarding the Declaration to the General Assembly
Human Rights Council resolution forwarding Declaration to the General Assembly (June 2006)
Recent History of the Center's Involvement
In December of 2005, we achieved a breakthrough in the United Nations, and it appeared that the Declaration could possibly be adopted by consensus within a year or two. We and our Indian nation clients have been central in building a consensus among states about the fundamental rights of Indian peoples, especially in the areas of the right to exist as Indian nations and tribes and the right to equality before the law. We have been responsible for drafting a crucial article on land rights in the UN draft Declaration, and we have helped to craft the sensitive provisions about indigenous self-government and self-determination. We have also been responsible for devising provisions that permit many states to accept the concept that indigenous peoples must have rights as peoples, nations or tribes, not just as individuals.
December 2005, at the UN Working Group dealing with the draft Declaration, agreeable language was found for 24 of the 67 provisions; these 24 provisions reached consensus and were slated for provisional adoption. The principal provisions that did not reach consensus were self-determination and rights to lands and resources. Even on these contentious articles, crucial progress was made on the language of the text and the understanding of the rights involved.
The Working Group then met for an additional week at the end of January 2006. Tim Coulter, Armstrong Wiggins, Leonardo Crippa, and Valerie Taliman attended the session to push for resolving the remaining issues and for adopting the Declaration by consensus. Some additional progress was made, but the Working Group concluded its final session, after eleven years of work without adopting the Declaration. Based on the proposals submitted by the Center and other organizations, the Chairman of the Working Group officially submitted to the UN Commission on Human Rights a new and revised text of the draft Declaration. The chairman's text presented what he believed to be the current law regarding the substance of the rights of indigenous peoples and which he believed could be approved by states. The chairman’s text was relatively strong, but some outstanding problems continued to make it difficult for many states to approve the Declaration.
While in Geneva in January 2006, the Center also participated in a UN Expert Seminar on the topic of Indigenous Peoples’ Permanent Sovereignty Over Natural Resources. Based on our contribution to a UN report that was published on this topic, Tim Coulter was invited by Special Rapporteur Erica Daes to participate as one of the experts at the seminar. The seminar provided an opportunity to seek further understanding on the lands and resources articles in the UN draft Declaration and to look ahead to the problems of implementing and protecting the rights that the Declaration will create when it is finally approved.
In June of 2006, the new UN Human Rights Council adopted by majority vote the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We attended the June session and fought hard for the Declaration. We would have preferred to continue working for a consensus of all countries, as this is the usual method for adoption of human rights instruments. However, the European Union and many countries of Central and South America were eager for a majority vote, and this view prevailed. The Declaration was easily adopted, but the United States, Canada, Russia, Australia and New Zealand announced their opposition. The adoption of the Declaration sent the Declaration on the UN General Assembly.
In the General Assembly, we continued to press states to support the Declaration. However, in the General Assembly, the African group of states became concerned that the present text of the Declaration had not been actually discussed or debated by states. They expressed concern about the right of self-determination and the lack of a definition of “indigenous peoples.” Because of these concerns, these states sponsored a resolution asking that action on the Declaration be deferred until as late as September 2007 in order to have time for further consultations about the Declaration. This resolution was adopted in late November 2006, and this meant that there was a period of further consultations and discussions on the Declaration in New York.
We began a further round of talks with states and knowledgeable experts in New York. We expected that there would be a process created for discussing the Declaration, and we had already begun to take steps to assure that indigenous representatives would be able to participate. Whatever process emerged, we were going to be there to assist the Six Nations, the Navajo Nation, and other Indian nations that request our assistance. We predicted that adoption of the Declaration by the General Assembly continued to be possible if not likely by September of 2007.