International Indian Treaty Council sends urgent communication to UN about Dakota Access pipeline

The International Indian Treaty Council has filed an urgent communication with four of the UN Special Rapporteurs regarding the Dakota Access pipeline and the concerns raised about it by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The communication is addressed to four thematic rapporteurs: on the situation of human rights defenders, on the rights of indigenous peoples, on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, and the environment and human rights.

This press release from the International Indian Treaty Council  explains that the urgent  communication  "requests the intervention of these UN human rights mandate holders to call upon the United States to uphold its statutory, legal, Treaty and human rights obligations and impose an immediate and ongoing moratorium on all pipeline construction until the Treaty and human rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, including their right to free prior and informed consent, can be ensured."

Call for Papers: University of the Gambia Student Law Review

CALL FOR PAPERS UNIVERSITY OF THE GAMBIA STUDENT LAW REVIEW

The University of The Gambia Law Faculty will publish in September 2013 its first Student Law Review. We would welcome submissions from students, academics and law professionals. This is a call for papers with a human rights focus. The first edition will be a special edition on human rights. Please submit a 300 word abstract of your proposed article by and no later than 12.00 midday January 20 2013. The final article will be 5,000 words including footnotes (OSCOLA) and will need to be submitted by 1 May 2013.

Please send abstracts to  Fiona Batt at her email: F.Batt@utg.edu.gm

Bioethics, Medical Research and Indigenous Rights

I have been reading a book by Rebecca Skloot, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”.

This book traces the story of Henrietta Lacks, her family, and the cells that were taken from her when she was ill and then used in medical research. The book raises important questions about the ownership of DNA and cells, of medical research ethics in human subjects research, and informed consent. The book is riveting, well-written, and disturbing and inspirational at the same time.

Henrietta Lacks was African-American. But the bioethics questions raised about her own situation certainly resonate with bioethics questions and indigenous peoples. This is the first in a series of blog posts that will explore and address the issue of bioethics and indigenous rights.

The book, in a timeline appended at the back, mentions a lawsuit of the Havasupai tribe in 2005 raising bioethics issues not dissimilar from those raised about the cells taken from Henrietta Lacks.

A New York Times article from 2010 comments on the settlement that was reached, with “pay[ment] $700,000 to 41 of the tribe’s members, return the blood samples and provide other forms of assistance to the impoverished Havasupai — a settlement that legal experts said was significant because it implied that the rights of research subjects can be violated when they are not fully informed about how their DNA might be used.”

The problems and issues raised about bioethics and bio-prospecting and the rights of indigenous peoples remain important and unresolved issues. This 2011 article from NATURE outlines an issue involved in genome sequencing of the indigenous peoples of Australia, and further comments on the issues when human material is held in museum collections “The study also raises broader consent issues over body parts of indigenous people held in museums, says Kowal. Many collections are returning bones to these groups, but the British Museum in London, for instance, generally excludes hair and nails from its repatriation policy. Such specimens are a valuable tool for studying the genomes of people from around the world, including populations that no longer exist, argues Willerslev.”

Medical interests include not only the benefits to medical science, but of the profits that can be made from patents of human genetic material. This article gives a helpful summary of the various interests at stake and explains the role that international law has to play in an issue that combines medical and research ethics and laws and human rights:

“Beyond ethics, indigenous populations and human rights activists have found support in emerging international human rights jurisprudence on the need to protect indigenous peoples from racial discrimination and the emerging imperative of safeguarding indigenous peoples’ knowledge. For example, article 8(j) of the Convention on Biological Diversity obliges states to “respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovation and practices of indigenous communities and promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge.”

What are the current legal standards? What safeguards are put in place by researchers to ensure that the standards of informed consent as well as ownership and potential profits are met? What developing standards have occurred through litigation? These are questions that future posts on this blog will address.

Written by Sarah Sargent.

Setting an Example: Nordic Countries and the Sami Peoples

In light of the event publicized early on by Alexandra Xanthaki - meeting hosted at Brunel Law School,UK the Expert Workshop on Indigenous Languages and Culture, it might be timely to consider that indigenous peoples also are part of Europe. The popular image of indigenous peoples might place them far away in New World countries and continents, but as the 6 June 2011 report by Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya points out, indigenous rights are also a European issue.

On 6 June, Mr Anaya submitted a report in his role as the Special Rapporteur on “The situation of the Sami people in the Sapmi region of Norway, Sweden and Finland.” (available at this link here) gives some encouraging and positive news in a field that is often bleak in terms of how states are responding to international and regional imperatives on indigenous rights. Anaya’s summary comments that “The Special Rapporteur is pleased that, overall, Norway, Sweden, and Finland each pay a high level of attention to indigenous issues, relative to other countries. In many respects, initiatives related to the Sami people in the Nordic countries set important examples for securing the rights of indigenous peoples.”

This perhaps does not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the reputation of these states on human rights issues in general. It is heartening to hear that some states are making commendable and positively meaningful steps in the implementation of rights for indigenous peoples.

Whilst Anaya’s report does outline recommendations for areas where continued gains should continue to be made, it is clear that the states involved are making important strides in the realisation of rights for the Sami peoples.

He remarks that “Today, Sami people in the Nordic countries do not have to deal with many of the socio-economic concerns that commonly face indigenous peoples throughout the world, such as serious health concerns, extreme poverty or hunger. Norway, Sweden and Finland are among the wealthiest and most developed countries in the world and consistently rank toward the top of human development indicators. Nordic countries are thus well-positioned to tackle outstanding concerns related to the Sami people and to set examples for the advancement of the rights of indigenous peoples.”

This is well and good. It should also serve as a wake up call and a challenge for other developed and wealthy states with indigenous peoples There, indigenous peoples often face circumstances of low life expectancy, high birth rate mortality, high occurrences of preventable diseases, and low income whilst surrounded by prosperity and health indicators that stand in stark contrast to those of the indigenous peoples.

Awareness of the Sami peoples as indigenous peoples in Europe, and the achievements that have been made towards rights realisation is important as an example of what is achievable in the realm of indigenous rights.

Save the date!

A goody bag comes in your way! It is full of different topics that cover indigenous peoples. From language to land and from human rights to traditional knowledge we will be able to see all these topics under one roof.

Here is what Dr Alexandra Xanthaki says:

Brunel Law School in collaboration with the UN Expert Mechanism on Indigenous Issues is organising an Expert Workshop on Indigenous Languages and Cultures at Brunel University on the 8th-9th March 2012. The Workshop aims to contribute to the Annual Report of the Expert Mechanism, which will be on this same topic.

The themes that will be discussed in the conference include:

* An overview of indigenous peoples’ right to culture under international human rights law
* Indigenous peoples’ rights to language
* Indigenous peoples’ cultural self-determination and autonomy
* Indigenous peoples’ right to culture and lands, territories and resources, including reparations
* Custom, human rights and justified limitations
* Indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions
* Indigenous intellectual property rights
* indigenous identities and spirituality

Speakers include:

Elsa Stamatopoulou (Former Chief of the Secretariat of Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues)
Prof. Julian Burger (Former Chief of UN Minority and Indigenous Unit, currently Essex University)
Prof. Siegfried Wiessner (St Thomas Law School, US)
Prof. Rene Kuppe (University of Wien)
Dr Federico Lenzerini (Sienna University)
Prof. Samson (Essex University)
Prof. Paul Havenmann (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London)
Dr. Robert Dunbar (University of Aberdeen)
Dr. Damien Short (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London)
Prof. Joshua Castellino (Head of Department, Middlesex University)
Dr. Marilena Alivizatou (UCL)
Prof. Sonia Harris-Short (University of Birmingham)
Dr. Susan Aikmann (University of East Anglia)
Prof. Graham Dutfield (University of Leeds)
Dr Ghanea-Hercock (Oxford)
Prof. Marie-Benedicte Denbour (University of Sussex)
Dr. Kristin Hausler (British Institute of International and Comparative Law)

Definitely, the team that was put together is of some notoriety in the area of Indigenous Peoples and hopefully you can be there –it’s a date!

not this type of date!

Anyone interested to attend can email Dr Alexandra Xanthaki at alexandra.xanthaki@brunel.ac.uk.