AustLII Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback

Indigenous Law Bulletin

Indigenous Law Bulletin
You are here:  AustLII >> Databases >> Indigenous Law Bulletin >> 2007 >> [2007] IndigLawB 42

Database Search | Name Search | Recent Articles | Noteup | LawCite | Author Info | Download | Help

Davis, Rachel --- "The Sixth Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues: 'Territories, Lands and Natural Resources'" [2007] IndigLawB 42; (2007) 6(29) Indigenous Law Bulletin 6

The Sixth Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues: ‘Territories, Lands and Natural Resources’

by Rachel Davis

The United Nations (‘UN’) Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues provides advice to the UN’s Economic and Social Council (‘ECOSOC’) on issues including culture, the environment, health, education and human rights, as they relate to indigenous peoples. In addition to the 16 members of the Permanent Forum (independent experts, half of whom are nominated by governments and half by indigenous peoples’ organisations), the annual sessions of the Forum are attended by representatives of UN member states, UN agencies, other international organisations, and non-government and indigenous peoples’ organisations. The Permanent Forum provides a unique opportunity for indigenous peoples and organisations from around the world to meet, debate and collaborate on issues of concern to them, and to have direct input into UN decision-making and standard-setting processes.

The sixth annual session of the Permanent Forum was held at UN headquarters in New York from 14 May to 25 May 2007, focused on the theme of ‘Territories, lands and natural resources’. The Forum opened with a traditional blessing from Clint Shenandoah, Chief of the Onondaga Nation, and with the election of Mick Dodson as the Forum’s Rapporteur. The following 10 days were divided into plenary sessions, at which all delegates were given the opportunity to contribute (though to an unequal extent, with states and international agencies given greater latitude than non-government organisations (‘NGOs’)), closed meetings among the Forum’s members, and a series of over 60 side events on topics as varied as utilisation of the media by indigenous youth, isolated indigenous peoples, and indigenous perspectives on climate change.

A huge number of issues were raised during the Forum and a range of recommendations made by delegates – but one stood out clearly. There was a strong and sustained call from all the NGO delegations for the immediate adoption of the draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, without amendment, by the General Assembly before the end of its current session.[1] Importantly, this call was taken up by the Forum members in their final report, in which they ‘strongly urge[d]’ the General Assembly to adopt the Declaration without amendment.[2]

The purpose of the final report is to make specific recommendations to ECOSOC and to bring to its attention various issues considered by the Forum. In addition to progress on the Declaration, the final report echoed a number of other proposals made by NGO delegates to the Forum, including by the Australian NGO delegation. Recognising that ‘land rights, access to land and control over it and its resources are central to indigenous peoples throughout the world, and [that] they depend on such rights and access for their material and cultural survival’,[3] the report called for enhanced recognition of indigenous rights to lands, territories and natural resources in national laws, especially through the principle of free, prior and informed consent. The report echoed NGO delegates’ insistence on the need for effective participation by indigenous peoples at the decision-making, implementation and dispute-resolution stages of all projects affecting their lands. The report called for particular care to be taken by states, international organisations and the private sector in funding projects involving biofuels or monocropping. The members of the Forum also recommended that states ‘that have introduced changes to existing indigenous land management regimes invite the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people to undertake a study of those regimes and assess them against the principles contained in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’.[4]

Another major focus of the final report, and of the Forum, was the protection and promotion of indigenous traditional knowledge, genetic resources and traditional cultural expressions. The report called on states to recognise indigenous peoples’ customary laws concerning traditional knowledge and to consider the development of sui generis systems, based on those laws, to protect traditional knowledge and determine appropriate access and benefit-sharing schemes, which would complement the existing international intellectual property regime (as proposed in a detailed report prepared for the Forum by Mick Dodson).[5]

The Forum again called on states to implement fully their obligations under the various international human rights conventions to ensure the progressive realisation of indigenous peoples’ social and economic rights. The final report encouraged member states to improve their efforts to compile, analyse and disaggregate data on the special position of indigenous peoples among their broader populations, including in their progress toward the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.[6] More specifically, it recommended that states develop, implement and evaluate indicators on indigenous wellbeing in partnership with indigenous peoples.[7] The report acknowledged the need for not only member states but also UN agencies, intergovernmental organisations, indigenous peoples, the private sector and NGOs alike to assist in the realisation of these goals.[8]

The Forum included two half-day discussions on the particular challenges facing indigenous peoples in Asia and in urban settings. Members and delegates were also able to engage in an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on indigenous peoples, and with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women.[9] The Forum has invited the Special Rapporteur on indigenous peoples and the Special Rapporteurs on the right to education and on the right to physical and mental health to its seventh session, which will be held between 21 April and 2 May 2008. The theme of next year’s session is ‘Climate change, bio-cultural diversity and livelihoods: the stewardship role of indigenous peoples and new challenges’, and there will also be half-day discussions on the Pacific and on the preservation of indigenous languages (following on from a planned international expert group meeting on that topic). In the interim, the Forum has called on the Human Rights Council to include a focus on the rights of indigenous peoples as it restructures its processes, and to include indigenous experts on its new advisory council. The Forum has also asked it to authorise a final session of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations.

The work of the Forum is ongoing: as at late August, the General Assembly had yet to vote on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and members of the Forum and of the Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus continue to play a key role in this process. In addition to the other, more general human rights organs of the UN (such as the Human Rights Council, the human rights treaty body system and the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights), the Permanent Forum has become a useful point of leverage in the international system for indigenous representatives, and for other concerned NGO actors, to advocate for improved recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights and concerns.

Rachel Davis BA/LLB (UNSW); LLM (Harvard), has been working as a legal adviser to Professor John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights. In Australia, Rachel worked in the Indigenous Law and Justice Division of the Federal Attorney-General’s Department and as an associate at the High Court of Australia. Rachel is an Indigenous Law Centre (‘ILC’) Associate and represented the ILC at the sixth session of the Permanent Forum in New York this year.


[1] That is, in the form in which it was adopted by the Human Rights Council in 2006 in Resolution 2006/2, 29 June 2006.

[2] See UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Report on the Sixth Session (14-25 May 2007), [8],UN Doc E/2007/43 (2007).

[3] Ibid [6].

[4] Ibid [33].

[5] UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Report of the Secretariat on Indigenous Traditional Knowledge, UN Doc E/C.19/2007/10 (2007).

[6] See <http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals> .

[7] UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, above n 2, [128].

[8] Ibid [2].

[9] The Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons also submitted a statement to the Forum.


AustLII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback
URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/IndigLawB/2007/42.html