Indigenous Rights: Changes and Challenges in the 21st Century

https://ubpl.buckingham.ac.uk/?wpsc-product=indigenous-rights-changes-and-challenges-in-the-21st-century

Now published: Indigenous Rights: Changes and Challenges in the 21st Century
Edited by Sarah Sargent and Jo Samanta
Published by University of Buckingham Press

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."

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.

Not just a blogger!

Dr Sarah Sargent not only should be known as another blogger in the issue of indigenous rights. She is also fully committed to active research in this area. This month we see the publication of one of her studies titled: “Transnational networks and United Nations human rights structural change: the future of indigenous and minority rights”, published by the International Journal of Human Rights 16.1 (2012).

Here is what it is said about it:

This article examines the reasons behind the differing United Nations structural provisions for minority and indigenous rights. There is overlapping membership between these two structures, yet the indigenous rights regime is seen as very robust and effective compared to that of the minority rights regime. The article proposes a model to explain the difference based upon the effect of transnational advocacy network campaign pressure upon the UN structures. It make use of intersections of international law and international relations theory (which is very much a developing trend in international law research) to explore this.

Well done Sarah! 

Sacred Spaces: Litigation and Access to Justice

The Wetlands in Lawrence, Kansas, USA are not the only indigenous sacred spaces subject to litigation. In Australia, there is on-going litigation to prevent mining which is said to put many sacred sites at risk.

The article Aboriginal Group Challenges Mining Project published here contains comments from Professor Jon Altman who points out the disparity in power and resources that indigenous peoples face when it comes to litigation with large corporate interests.

This points out a very real dilemma for indigenous peoples. Access to courts can be expensive, and as the Wetlands litigation points out might conceivably go on for years. It is well and good to have laws on the books—even the “soft law” of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But those laws—as discussed in my earlier posts about the Indian Child Welfare Act-- are rendered meaningless in reality where there is no implementation or compliance with them, or when the protections that they offer are difficult to reach. But the concerns about indigenous rights is more than a point about barriers to reaching the laws or faulty implementation of laws on the books. As a report from Amnesty International (at this link) points out “Indigenous human rights defenders who speak out face intimidation and violence, often with the collaboration of the state.”

Any discussion or contemplation of indigenous rights and the exercise and access to those rights must keep in mind that the claiming and utilisation of rights is far more than an academic exercise. It is a real problem that confronts people in their every day lives. At times it seems that the academic study of indigenous rights runs the risk of being a “fad”-- the topic de jure with much ivory tower theorising—which will fade when the next major international instrument is passed. Any discussion of indigenous rights must keep in mind that there is a very human element to the discussion and that should not be forgotten.

There are many studies done that focus on the practical and real problems indigenous peoples face in accessing and exercising rights. Rachel Sieder and Maria Teresa Sierra have a paper on “Indigenous Women’s Access to Justice in Latin America”, which can be accessed at this link. The International Labour Organisation has a publication from 2009, “Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ Rights In Practice”, which focuses on ILO Convention 169, and can be accessed at this link.

Written by Sarah Sargent.

Chile: the right to wear a traditional custom is more than a mere fact

This month we saw a Chilean Senator introducing legislation that would allow students to wear Indigenous dress to school.

Background
Last November two Mapuches students were not allowed to take part in the photo-shoot schedule in their high school in Collipulli, a local school in the Araucania region, Chile. The pictures are taken as part of the graduation ceremony – photo taken and to be given in the graduation day. The director of the school refused to accept without further explanation the girls to be wearing their traditional Mapuche. The girls informed the Temucuicui community of the circumstances and the ‘lonko’ (a leader from the Mapuche community) Queipul Victor argued that there was "… a clear attitude of discrimination and racism by the director, a situation that we are not willing to accept and less leave unpunished…”

As a result, Senator Alejandro Navarro proposed and so introduced an amendment (Boletín N° 8.073-04) to the legislation on Education that would allow all students to wear Indigenous cloth to school and to its functions. The Senator referred to the second paragraph of Regulation No. 57 of 2002, Ministry of Education, which expressly states: "In any case, the failure to use school uniforms cannot be punished with a ban to enter the educational establishment. " Therefore, he noted that the regulation clearly indicates that educational establishments are not allowed to prohibit assistance for not having school uniform.

The Senator also mentioned the ILO Convention 169 Art 1 and 2 as the reasons why Indigenous peoples should be allowed to wear their traditional clothing customs to school ceremonies.

Senator Navarro proposes to add to Art 11 of Law N ° 20.37O, General Law of Education the following:

"Membership of a student or pupil to native or indigenous community, in no case constitute an impediment to enter and remain in an educational establishments at all levels, the establishment must provide academic and administrative facilities to allow application of both objectives. Moreover, establishments situated especially in those regions, communes and villages where there are  communities of indigenous peoples, shall assist for the integration and participation of students referred to in this subsection, in all activities of the establishment,whether sporting, academic, recreational, extracurricular, or recreational, promoting and safeguarding the respect from the whole educational community to the ancient customs and practices, including the use of their clothes or clothes in the establishment's activities. Furthermore the establishments would set up in their internal regulations, the penalties for transgression of this rule. "

One of the things that I like the most in a graduation day here in the UK is to see some of the parents wearing their traditional clothes and to be honest I never thought this to be a right as such. I mean, some opt to wear Armani or Gucci while some opt to wear jeans! And as the title implies, to wear traditional clothes is more than a right, I can see actually the faces of the families not only being proud for their relatives’ achievement but they wear this beautiful dresses proud of being who they are. I definitely applaud this Chilean proposal.

Source newspaper La Nacion.

Indigenous identity and settler society: a manipuation somewhere?

Sarah's post in response to Patricia's, about "becoming native", brought to mind the idea of how much indigenousness there is to settler societies in countries such as Australia and Brazil, where the percentage of indigenous peoples, compared to the overall population, is fairly low. I am a Brazilian working in Australia, so I can’t help but try to draw similarities between the two countries, especially as Australia now looks into how to insert language recognizing indigenous peoples into the Australia Constitution. My point being, there is something almost tokenistic to the way indigeneity is addressed in some of these countries. I understand that the rhetoric is mighty important, and that it does help build up to concrete action, but when Australians seem to favor a preamble over a hard provision on the recognition of the contribution of indigenous peoples to Australian society and on safeguards for their culture, it makes me wonder how indigenous identity can be manipulated and appropriated by settler societies to serve certain purposes.

Crossing back to the Americas, take the Organization of American States (OAS) as an example. The OAS has been drafting for many years now its own declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, and there is a lot of buzz around it, seen as a vast majority of the world’s indigenous peoples live in the Americas. And there is a lot of language in this OAS draft about how the identity of the American people is different from Europeans precisely because of the indigenous influence. So far, so good. Except that it creates the possibility for an appropriation of indigeneity, or, to be more precise, a certain version of indigeneity that conforms to the goal of “safe differentiation from Europeans” that is problematic, in the sense that non-idealized expressions of indigenous identity will not gain as much recognition, for not being seen as “sufficiently indigenous”, or, what is worse, not “authentic”. Am I against a search for authenticity when it comes to culture? To be quite honest, I go back and forth a lot on this one, but, if the criteria for authenticity are to be set a priori by non-indigenous peoples, then I am against a test of authenticity of any sort. Why? Because it creates an expectation that indigenous peoples’ cultures, in order to receive any support from the government for their development, will have to conform to a certain idyllic way of life, which may well coincide with what they wanted all along, but it may also not. Depriving indigenous peoples of the choice to be what they want is what bothers me.
Which is why, while I am all for recognizing the influence indigenous peoples’ influence on settler societies, I am wary of any attempts at determining, from the outside, what this culture is on the whole. So, let us come home and become a little more native, by all means, but let us prevent ourselves from thinking we can actually comprehend a foreign culture in all its richness, texture, nuance and internal contradictions. We should always aspire to knowing it in full, but we should always be aware we’ll never get there.

Written by Lucas Lixinski.

Voice and Silence

Voice. Who has it? Who can speak? Who is silenced? Who is listening? These are all questions that circle around my mind, thinking of writing on a blog about indigenous issues. Who am I to write, think, speak on these issues, to add my own thoughts and ideas into the rich and vibrant discussion that has been steadily growing since the 1970’s?
I am, after all, not indigenous. I am in Wes Jackson’s words, one of the “descendants of those early beneficiaries of conquest”. I want to avoid the scenario that scholar Makua Matua addresses in his work on human rights, “Savages, Saviors and Victims.”

I do not know better than anyone, I do not want to be in the position of promoting rescue or salvation. Indigenous peoples are not victims in the sense of being powerless, in need of a benevolent non-indigenous hand to promote their aims and needs and to give them voice.
And thus it is a quandary on how to approach the work and discussion on indigenous peoples in this blog. Indigenous peoples are not a single uniform entity, but a wide variety of peoples across the world. Their various cultures are not frozen in time but evolve, change, and influence other cultures. Things such as essentialisation, stereotypes and tokenism are things to strive to avoid.

That is one part of the issue on voice. But there are larger issues, about indigenous peoples gaining voice and speaking out. There are issues as well on the implications of the silencing of when individuals, communities and peoples . The dynamics of silencing are discussed by Alexander, et.al. in their book “Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity” and is a worthwhile read.

A blog helps to break silence. It helps to bring discussion, attention, dialogue, questioning and focus on issues. A voice, anyone’s voice, added to the discussion, keeps silence and all of the dynamics it brings with it at bay. This is what I tell myself whilst struggling to avoid the pitfalls and traps that can come in engaging in the discussion—avoiding ideas of rescue, salvation, victims, stereotypes and frozen culture. Acknowledging that and with adding my own voice to the discussion with some careful hesitation, it is a delight to see this blog take off, and my thanks to Patricia for bringing this idea to fruition!

Witten by Sarah Sargent