"Preface" to Restoring Indigenous Self-Determination (original) (raw)
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Self-Determination as Foundation to Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
Developed in the 15th Century through a series of pontifical writings, the “The doctrine of discovery” helped western countries to put in place a domination system depriving indigenous peoples’ rights, most especially the rights to a land and access to their resources. That article tries to show that, it is through the self determination that indigenous people can do away with a segregationist system that has kept them into a state of alienation, defend their rights and fight against all sorts of discrimination due to the fact that they belong to a group different from the majority. However, The declaration of the United Nations on the Rights of indigenous people, it acknowledges the right to self-determination enable the indigenous people to get organized to improve their situation on political, economic, social and cultural plans and end all kinds of discrimination and oppressions wherever it is operates. The self-determination can the make it possible to obstruct the forced assimilation policy and makes cultural diversity possible as values of human dignity. The rationale behind this study was to demonstrate that it is only through auto determination that indigenous people can do away with a segregationist system that keep them in an alienation state. It enables them defend their rights and fight against all kinds of discrimination caused by their belonging to a group different from the majority.
Articulating self-determination in the draft declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples
European Journal of International Law, 2001
This paper reports on the current negotiations on the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, taking place under the auspices of the UN Commission on Human Rights. The draft Declaration's provision for an indigenous peoples' right of selfdetermination provides an opportunity for the world community to articulate more clearly what is meant by the right to self-determination outside traditional contexts. Part 2 of the paper describes the international legal context in which representatives of indigenous peoples make claims to self-determination, focusing on indications that a requirement of selfdetermination is representative government. Part 3 of the paper develops the view that self-determination should accordingly be considered as a conceptual composite incorporating provision for political participation, autonomy, choice of community, and negotiated self-determination. From this model of self-determination will flow political structures and measures which specifically take into account the particular identity and situations of indigenous peoples. Should negotiations progress, and the United Nations General Assembly eventually adopt a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the author considers that it would be likely to include a provision on self-determination in such terms. In this way, a provision on indigenous peoples' self-determination could make a valuable contribution to international law.
Multidisciplinary Reviews
This research article delves into the formidable obstacles and struggles that indigenous people encounter as they strive for their rights within the framework of international law. Its broad objective is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the rights indigenous communities demand in contrast to the rights available to them at the international level. The paper focuses on three fundamental rights actively sought by indigenous peoples: indigenous sovereignty, right to self-determination, and democratic rights. To commence, the paper undertakes a thorough examination of the concept of sovereignty and its pertinence to indigenous communities. It analyzes the nature and extent of indigenous sovereignty, considering how the ongoing debate on sovereignty influences the calls for indigenous self-governance. Additionally, it critically evaluates the associated rights that are intrinsically linked to indigenous sovereignty. Following this, the paper explores the notion of self-determin...
Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d’histoire du droit international, 2020
When the United Nations General Assembly passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, it introduced into the international legal lexicon a new dimension to the concept of self-determination. The declaration emphasizes indigenous peoples’ distinctive rights to land, culture, language, and collective identity. It does not propose political independence or sovereign statehood, instead insisting on indigenous peoples’ equal rights of citizenship within existing nation-states. The distinct dimension of self-determination that the declaration introduces is one that speaks of indigenous peoples’ particular colonial histories of dispossession and the restoration of their rights and identities in the present, but without disrupting the political continuity of the states that surround them. It is reparative rather than revolutionary. In this article, I examine the construction and contestation of an indigenous right to self-determination both in relation to earlier definitions, and among and between the peoples and states who drafted the declaration.
” in Minorities within Minorities: Equality, Rights and Diversity, Avigail Eisenberg and Jeff Spinner-Halev, eds,, 2004
This chapter gives the basic outline of the Draft Declaration’s treatment of self-determination and argues that this view of self-determination is correct. Self-determination is a human right and this human right is the same right that underpins the rights of states. Treating an interest of peoples like self-determination as a constitutive element of human dignity raises practical worries about the stability of the international system, and philosophical worries about potential conflicts between individuals and peoples. But it also casts state sovereignty itself in a different light. This new light has interesting consequences both for international law and for philosophical debates about minorities within minorities. In particular, it allows one to think about questions about internal minorities as ultimately questions about legitimacy and representation.
What Self in Self-Determination? Notes from the Frontiers of Transnational Indigenous Activism
Identities-global Studies in Culture and Power, 2003
The indigenous quest for self-determination is an attempt to give voice to local injustice in a universal language, and to make claims to difference via a right that applies equally to all peoples. This article explores recent developments in the transnational indigenous movement's struggle for the right of self-determination by pointing out that this polyvalence-like the indeterminacies of the concepts of "peoples" and "indigenous"is a productive one that enables indigenous activists to make a unique intervention in international law. Their work aims at creating a new international legal personality based on collective rather than individual rights, and on an understanding of "peoples" as self-determining entities not necessarily aspiring to statehood. This new understanding hinges, in turn, on an emerging perception of the capacity to culture as a general human right. This article addresses recent anthropological texts critical of the transnational indigenous movement to show that the "self" in self-determination as articulated by indigenous activists is not only not accounted for and not protected under current international legal regimes, but is also "a self" through which radical claims to culture and territory are being made.
Probing into the concept, scope and implementation patterns and potential of the indigenous people's right to self-determination, is the sole aim of this essay. Significant normative precepts as enshrined in the international law and the exegeses that surround are analysed here coupled with the implementation problems and possible solutions. Ultimately, it is states who are obliged to implement the autonomy indigenous peoples are entitled to, hence, state behaviour and certain responses are also reflected to understand the situation better. Real life difficulties and obstacles that indigenous people confront in exercising their right to self-determination also run along. A few good practices also feature in at the end to prescribe (1)suitable ways to emulate.
Handbook of Indigenous Public Policy, 2024
n this chapter, I examine the following key questions from the vantage point of Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty: Why are Indigenous rights so difficult to implement? What are the core requirements and frameworks of policy and governance that respect Indigenous human rights? I will begin with a brief dis- cussion of the emergence of the self-determination discourse starting in the United States (US) in the 1960s and how that has shaped domestic policymaking and vice versa. I then consider the current global Indigenous self-determination and human rights discourse. I examine its relationship first to the international norm of state sovereignty and second to exclusionary gender regimes and gendered violence, both considerable problems in Indigenous communities. I ask whether UNDRIP, notwithstanding its utmost significance as the international human rights instrument for the protection of Indigenous rights, stands in the way of implementing Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty in certain regards.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND SELF-DETERMINATION IN SETTLER STATES
The Routledge Handbook of Self-Determination and Secession, 2023
Indigenous peoples, sometimes known collectively as the “fourth world,” have endured hardships during centuries of colonialism. Currently, 40% of the world’s countries contain Indigenous nations, who collectively comprise 476 million people, or 6% of the global population, and 19% of the extreme poor (World Bank 2022). While Indigenous peoples have been systematically marginalized in settler states, they have organized collectively to promote their inherent rights, domestically, across borders, and internationally through regional organizations and the United Nations. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007) is a testament to many decades of deliberation, negotiation, and consensus decision-making, laying out a minimum standard of Indigenous rights. This chapter focuses on western settler states: Canada, the United States, Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand (collectively the CANZUS states). While self-determination and independent sovereign statehood often flow together, this Westphalian option is rarely requested by Indigenous peoples. Rather, the UNDRIP facilitates alternative expressions of self-determination that comprise (inter alia) forms of internal autonomy, input into decision-making within the state, the right to free prior and informed consent, treaty making and full participation in international organi-zations, and freer movement across state borders. The UNDRIP can play an important role in guaranteeing these and other inherent Indigenous rights, if it is recognized and implemented by settler states.