The UNDRIP: an increasingly robust legal parameter

ABSTRACT

Indigenous peoples have lived through a process of invisibility and systematic exclusion practically ever since the era of conquest. The arrival of republican States in Latin America following the decolonisation process did not involve a substantial change in the traditional relationship of subjection and submission endured by native peoples in the Americas. In the mid-twentieth century, the international community began to pay attention to the marginalised situation of indigenous peoples. The main objective was to integrate some peoples that were considered to be backward and in need of protection. It was within this paradigm that most of the interactions with indigenous peoples have occurred, such as the first international treaty adopted in this field, Convention No. 107 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO, 1957). This situation began to change with the adoption of Convention No. 169 by the ILO in 1989, and especially with the recently adopted United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007). The UNDRIP has to be seen as the culmination of a long and difficult journey in which indigenous peoples themselves and their representatives have been key participants. Irrespective of the uncertain legal nature of the UNDRIP per se, one can conclude that it has become an unavoidable parameter of reference when dealing with indigenous peoples’ rights, an increasingly robust legal instrument.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous peoples
• colonisation
• coloniality of power
• empowerment
• human rights
• UNDRIP

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Felipe Gómez Isa is a Professor of Public International Law, and researcher at the Pedro Arrupe Institute of Human Rights of the University of Deusto. He is the National Director of the European Master in Human Rights and Democratisation (Global Campus of Human Rights, Venice, Italy).

Notes

1. Paul Keal, European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Moral Backwardness of International Society (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

2. James Anaya, Indigenous Peoples in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

3. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, International Law from Below. Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

4. Elvira Pulitano, ‘Indigenous Rights and International Law: An Introduction’, in Indigenous Rights in the Age of the UN Declaration, ed. E. Pulitano (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 4.

5. James Brown Scott, The Spanish Origin of International Law: Francisco de Vitoria and his Law of Nations (London: Clarendon Press, 1934).

6. Felipe Gómez Isa, ‘The First Cry for Justice in the Americas-from Antonio de Montesinos to the Laws of Burgos (1512)’, in First Fundamental Rights Documents in Europe. Commemorating 800 Years of Magna Carta, ed. M. Suksi et al. (Cambridge: Intersentia, 2015), 93–105.

7. See the refreshing analysis by Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral, In the Shadow of Vitoria: A History of International Law in Spain (1770–1953) (Brill/Nijhoff, 2018).

8. Paolo G. Carozza, ‘From Conquest to Constitutions: Retrieving a Latin American Tradition of the Idea of Human Rights’, Human Rights Quarterly 25 (2003): 291.

9. This is the essence of some provisions found in the Covenant of the League of Nations (1919), the constitutive treaty of the first international organization. According to Article 22, a provision that has to be read in a colonial context, ‘to those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization … ’ (emphasis added).

10. Patrick Thornberry, Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 329–33.

11. Besides, ILO Convention No. 107 refers to indigenous ‘populations’ instead of peoples. The recognition as true peoples and nations is one of the main claims of the global indigenous movement. See the leading work by Luis Rodríguez-Piñero, Indigenous Peoples, Post-colonialism and International Law. The ILO Regime (1919–1989) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

12. José Bengoa, La emergencia indígena en América Latina (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000); Alison Brysk, From Tribal Village to Global Village. Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000).

13. Rhiannon Morgan, Transforming Law and Institution. Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations and Human Rights (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 43.

14. Salle Engle Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence. Translating International Law into Local Justice (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2006), 226.

15. Makau Mutua, ‘The Transformation of Africa. A Critique of the Rights Discourse’, in International Human Rights Law in a Global Context, ed. F. Gómez Isa and K. De Feyter (Bilbao: Deusto Univesity Press, 2009), 901.

16. Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 1978); Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

17. Eve Darian-Smith, ‘Postcolonial Theories of Law’, in An Introduction to Law and Social Theory, ed. R. Banakar and M. Travers (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2013), 247.

18. Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (New York: International Publishers, 1966).

19. Antony Anghie, ‘The Evolution of International Law: Colonial and Postcolonial Realities’, Third World Quarterly 27 (2006): 749.

20. On the role that International Financial and Trade Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) or the World Trade Organization (WTO) play in the maintenance of colonial relations between the North and the South aiming at the imposition of a neoliberal global order, see David Fidler, ‘A Kinder, Gentler System of Capitulations? International Law, Structural Adjustment Policies, and the Standard of Liberal, Globalized, Civilization’, Texas International Law Journal 35 (2000): 387–413; Chimni, ‘International Institutions Today: An Imperial Global State in the Making’, European Journal of International Law 15 (2004): 1–37.

21. Malcolm Shaw, ‘The Heritage of States: The Principle of Uti Possidetis Juris Today’, British YearBook of International Law 67 (1997): 97–151.

22. Mattias Ahrén, Indigenous Peoples’ Status in the International Legal System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 19.

23. Siegfried Wiessner, ‘Indigenous Self-determination, Culture, and Land: A Reassessment in Light of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’, in E. Pulitano see note 4 above, 36. A critical account of the influence of the principle of uti possidetis in today’s Africa can be found in Makau Mutua, ‘Why Redraw the Map of Africa: A Moral and Legal Inquiry’, Michigan Journal of International Law 16 (1995): 1113–76. See also Steven Ratner, ‘Drawing a Better Line: Uti Possidetis and the Borders of New States’, American Journal of International Law 90 (1996): 590–624.

24. See the seminal work by Aníbal Quijano, ‘Colonialidad y Modernidad/Racionalidad’, in Los conquistados. 1492 y la población indígena de las Américas, comp H. Bonilla (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo-Libri Mundi, 1992), 437–47. See also Enrique Dussel, 1492. El Encubrimiento del Otro: hacia el Origen del Mito de la Modernidad (La Paz: Plural Editores-UMSA, 1994); Walter Mignolo, ‘El desprendimiento: pensamiento crítico y giro descolonial’, in Interculturalidad, Descolonización del Estado y del Conocimiento, ed. C. Walsh, A. García Linera y W. Mignolo (Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Signo, 2006), 9–20.

25. See Boaventura de Sousa Santos, ed., Another Knowledge is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies (London: Verso, 2007).

26. Pedro Garzón López, Ciudadanía Indígena. Del multiculturalismo a la colonialidad del poder (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2016), 279.

27. Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990); Asier Martínez de Bringas, La cultura como derecho en América Latina. Ensayo sobre la realidad postcolonial en la globalización (Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2005).

28. Santiago Castro-Gómez, La poscolonialidad explicada a los niños (Bogotá: Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá, 2005), 59.

29. Catherine Walsh, Interculturalidad, estado y sociedad. Luchas (de)coloniales de nuestra época (Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, 2009), 167.

30. Augusto Willemsen-Diaz, ‘How Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Reached the UN’, in Making the Declaration Work. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ed. C. Chartres and R. Stavenhagen (Copenhagen: IWGIA, 2009), 16–31.

31. A number of bodies were created to deal specifically with indigenous issues (Working Group on Indigenous Peoples; Working Group on a Draft Declaration on indigenous peoples’ rights; Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues; Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, and Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). The General Assembly of the UN also proclaimed two consecutive UN Decades on Indigenous Peoples (1994–2003 and 2005–2014). The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has recently called for a Third International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. In its view, ‘over the course of the two Decades, we have seen some progress … However, we need to ensure and reinvigorate momentum to genuinely implement the UN Declaration … A Third Decade can provide a framework and consolidate clear milestones for the achievement of the UN Declaration … ’, A Third International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Dalee Sambo Dorough, Chairperson, 7 November 2014, http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/Communication-UNPFII%20Chair-3decade.pdf.

32. Irène Bellier and Martin Préaud, ‘Emerging Issues in Indigenous Rights: Transformative Effects of the Recognition of Indigenous Peoples’, The International Journal of Human Rights 16, no. 3 (2012): 474–88.

33. Post-1945 international law and institutions have been used by the West (an imagined community itself) to construct and impose a new set of rational truths based on particular values, norms and socio-political organizations that were defined as universal. Post-colonial studies have demonstrated that international law and institutions, among many other structures of power, were used by the West to maintain its hierarchies and modes of domination. Indigenous peoples’ struggles have aimed to decolonize both the theory and practice of the ‘ideological-institutional complex’ known as international law. On this challenging processes see the illuminating essay by Sundhya Pahuja, Decolonising International Law. Development, Economic Growth and the Politics of Universality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

34. Dalee Sambo Dorough, ‘The Significance of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Its Future Implementation’, in note 30 above, 264–79.

35. Lola García-Alix, The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (Copenhagen: IWGIA, 2003).

36. International Law Association, Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Report of the Hague Conference (2010), 2.

37. 27 states ratified this convention. Since the adoption of ILO Convention 169, Convention 107 is no longer open for ratification. However, it is still in force in 18 countries that have not ratified yet Convention 169.

38. Rodríguez-Piñero, note 11 above.

39. As of February 2018, only 22 states have ratified ILO Convention No. 169 (Argentina, Plurinational State of Bolivia, Brazil, Central African Republic, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominica, Ecuador, Fiji, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Spain and Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:11300:0::NO:11300:P11300_INSTRUMENT_ID:312314.

40. Irène Bellier, ‘Les peuples autochtones aux Nations Unies: un nouvel acteur dans la fabrique des normes internationales’, Critique Internationale 54, no. 1 (2012): 61–80.

41. Some governments are still reluctant to recognise the very category of collective rights in the context of indigenous peoples’ rights. In the view of the United Kingdom, ‘with the exception of the right to self-determination, the United Kingdom did not accept the concept of collective human rights in international law’, https://www.un.org/press/en/2007/ga10612.doc.htm.

42. Albert K. Barume, ‘Responding to the Concerns of African States’, in note 30 above, 180–81.

43. Felipe Gómez Isa, ‘The Right to Development, Translating Indigenous Voice(s) into Development Theory and Practice’, in The World Bank Legal Review Volume 6. Improving Delivery in Development: The Role of Voice, Social Contract, and Accountability, ed. J. Wouters et al. (Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2015), 91–102.

44. Sebastiaan Johannes Rombouts, Having a Say. Indigenous Peoples, International Law and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (Oisterwijk: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2014).

45. Free, prior and informed consent can also be arguably found in Art. 6.2 of ILO Convention 169. According to this provision, ‘The consultations carried out in application of this Convention shall be undertaken, in good faith and in a form appropriate to the circumstances, with the objective of achieving agreement or consent to the proposed measures’.

46. Patrick Glenn, ‘The Three Ironies of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’, in Reflections on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ed. S. Allen and A. Xanthaki (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011), 174.

47. Felipe Gómez Isa, ‘Repairing Historical Injustices: Indigenous Peoples in Post-conflict Scenarios’, in Rethinking Transitions. Equality and Social Justice in Societies Emerging from Conflict, ed. G. Oré Aguilar and F. Gómez Isa (Cambridge: Intersentia, 2011), 265–300.

48. Paragraph 6 of the Preamble.

49. Miguel Concha Malo, ‘Lucha por la dignidad y los derechos humanos individuales y colectivos de los pueblos de América Latina’, in Responsabilidad Histórica. Preguntas del nuevo al viejo mundo, ed. R. Mate (Barcelona: Anthropos, 2007), 321.

50. James Anaya and Sigfried Wiessner, ‘The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Towards Re-empowement’, Jurist, October 3, 2007, http://jurist.org/forum/2007/10/un-declaration-on-rights-of-indigenous.php.

51. James Anaya, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, S. James Anaya, UN Doc. A/HRC/9/9, 11 August (2008), 43.

52. International Law Association, Resolution No. 5/2012, 75th Conference of the ILA, Sofia, 26–30 August (2012): para. 2.

53. United States, ‘Observations of the United States with respect to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Explanation of Vote by Robert Hagen, U.S. Advisor, on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to the UN General Assembly’, 13 September (2007).

54. UN Doc. A/61/PV.107, 13.

55. Ibid., 12.

56. Mauro Barelli, ‘The Role of Soft Law in the International Legal System: The Case of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly 58, no. 4 (2009): 967.

57. Matías Meza-Lopehandía, ‘El Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos y los Pueblos Indígenas’, in Los Pueblos Indígenas y el Derecho, coord. J. Aylwin (Santiago de Chile: LOM Ediciones, 2013), 466.

58. Announcement of U.S. Support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 16 December 2010, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/184099.pdf. A very similar position was expressed by the Canadian government. In its view, ‘ … the Declaration is a non-legally binding document that does not reflect customary international law nor change Canadian laws … In 2007, at the time of the vote during the United Nations General Assembly, and since, Canada placed on record its concerns with various provisions of the Declaration … These concerns are well known and remain. However, we have since listened to Aboriginal leaders who have urged Canada to endorse the Declaration and we have also learned from the experience of other countries. We are now confident that Canada can interpret the principles expressed in the Declaration in a manner that is consistent with our Constitution and legal framework’, Canada’s Statement of Support on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 12 November 2010, http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1309374239861/1309374546142.

59. Statement on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Parliament House, Canberra, 3 April 2009, http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/Australia_official_statement_endorsement_UNDRIP.pdf.

60. A less optimistic view has been expressed by some scholars. In relation to Australia’s endorsement, ‘it remains to be seen whether the international legislation underpinning the UNDRIP can be brought to bear on Australia, or whether the current government’s endorsement of UNDRIP is indeed little more than an empty gesture designed to enhance the country’s reputation in the eyes of the world’, Sheila Collingwood-Whittick, ‘Australia’s Northern Territory Intervention and Indigenous Rights on Language, Education and Culture: An Ethnocidal Solution to Aboriginal ‘Dysfunction’?’, in Pulitano, note 4 above, 136.

61. Statement by Hon Dr Pita Sharples, Minister of Maori Affairs, Announcement of New Zealand’s support for the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 19 April 2010, http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Media-and-publications/Media/MFAT-speeches/2010/0-19-April-2010.php.

62. Glenn note 46 above, 174.

63. Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Colombia, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Russian Federation, Samoa and Ukraine.

64. Barelli note 56 above, 978.

65. Luis Rodríguez-Piñero, ‘La “implementación” de la Declaración: las implicaciones del Artículo 42’, in La Declaración sobre los derechos de los pueblos indígenas. Hacia un mundo intercultural y sostenible, ed. N. Álvarez et al. (Madrid: Los Libros de la Catarata, 2009), 74–5.

66. In 2002, the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues (IASG) was created to support the PFII in the goal of promoting dialogue and cooperation between UN bodies and agencies dealing with indigenous issues. The IASG is composed by 31 bodies, departments, funds and agencies of the UN. See Julian Burger, in Chartres and Stavenhagen note 30 above, 309–10.

67. UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, ‘Report of the Seventh Session’, UN Doc. E/C.19/2008/23, 2008. Some members of the PFII have claimed that, given the special legitimacy and radical novelty of the UNDRIP, it should have some legally binding effects. This view has been expressed, among others, by Bartolomé Clavero, for whom ‘although the Declaration is not a treaty between states, it constitutes a convention or covenant between states and peoples, between the member states of the United Nations and indigenous peoples’, Bartolomé Clavero, Nota sobre el Alcance del Mandato contenido en el Artículo 42 de la Declaración sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas y el Mejor Modo de Satisfacerlo por parte del Foro Permanente para las Cuestiones Indígenas, UN Doc. E/C.19/2008/CRP.6, 26 March 2008, 9.

68. Human Rights Council, Resolution 6/12, 28 September 2007.

69. Anaya note 51 above, para. 85.

70. Luis Rodríguez-Piñero, ‘Where Appropriate: Monitoring/Implementing of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Under the Declaration’, in Chartres and Stavenhagen note 29 above, 334.

71. Thornberry note 10 above, 116.

72. World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, Outcome Document of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly Known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, UN Doc. A/RES/69/2, 22 September 2014, para. 29.

73. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Saramaka People v. Suriname (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs), Judgement of 28 November 2007, Series C No. 172, paras. 131 and 138.

74. Ibid., para 129.

75. ACHPR, Resolution 121 (XXXXII) on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 28 November 2007.

76. Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group International on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council v. Kenya, Communication 276/2003, para. 232. The African Commission relied to a great extent on the indigenous jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in a clear example of cross-fertilization between regional human rights systems.

77. Patricia Borraz, ‘The Endorois Case: Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the African regional human rights system’, in Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights in Domestic Courts, ed. L. Ferrer and P. Borraz (Madrid: Almaciga, 2013), 211–6.

78. African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights v. Republic of Kenya, Application No. 006/2012 Judgment, 26 May 2017, para. 209. See more references to the UNDRIP in paras. 126, 127 and 181.

79. Countries that have affirmed the right of indigenous peoples to their cultural identity, their cultural rights, land rights, right to autonomy and participatory rights include Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa and Taiwan, among many others, ILA note 35 above, 49–50.

80. The new Constitutions of Bolivia (2009) and Ecuador (2008) are leading examples of a new wave of constitutionalism known as plurinational constitutionalism. See Almut Schilling-Vacaflor and René Kuppe, ‘Plurinational Constitutionalism: A New Era of Indigenous-state Relations?’ in New Constitutionalism in Latin America: Promises and Practices, ed. D. Nolte and A. Schilling-Vacaflor (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 347–70.

81. Ley 3760 de los derechos de los pueblos indígenas, 7 November 2007.

82. Felipe Gómez Isa, ‘Cultural Diversity, Legal Pluralism, and Human Rights from an Indigenous Perspective: The Approach by the Colombian Constitutional Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’, Human Rights Quarterly 36, no. 2 (2014): 722–55.

83. The Constitutional Court of Peru has also referred to ILO Convention 169, the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the UNDRIP to reaffirm the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands and territories in the Tres Islas indigenous community Case, Sentencia del Tribunal Constitucional, Exp. No. 01126-2011-HC/TC, 11 September 2012, para. 23.

84. Maia Campbell and James Anaya, ‘The Case of the Maya Villages of Belize: Reversing the Trend of Government Neglect to Secure Indigenous Land Rights’, Human Rights Law Review 8, no. 2 (2008): 377.

85. Manuel Coy, Maya Village of Conejo, Manuel Caal, Perfecto Makin, Melina Makin Claimants v. Attorney General of Belize, Minister of Natural Resources, and Environmental Defendants, Supreme Court of Belize, 18 October 2007, para. 131.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid.

88. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2006/78, 16 February 2006.