UN draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People - Update

The draft Declaration was first developed in the 1985 by the then newly established Working Group on Indigenous Populations Representatives of Indigenous peoples and States were involved in the drafting. The draft was complete in 1993 and since then various UN bodies and sub committees have been working to have it agreed to by consensus. The majority of the Articles have been agreed to by the indigenous representatives and States. A few remain controversial even though the Declaration has not legal force and is of moral force only. The UN Human Rights Council has adopted the Declaration and has put it on the agenda for the full UN General Assembly to consider for adoption.

The Declaration sets minimum standards of protection for the individual; and collective rights of indigenous peoples around the world. These include the right to self determination and also to:

• maintain distinct political, legal economic social and cultural institutions;
  
• be free from genocide, the forced removal of children or other acts of violence;
  
• be free from forced assimilation, forced removal from their lands or destruction of culture;
  
• maintain their distinctive spiritual relationship to their lands, waters coastal seas and resources
  
• control, protect and develop their traditional knowledge, technologies and intellectual property;
  
• the lands, territories and resources they have traditionally owned
  
• require states to obtain their free and informed consent before any legislation or administrative measures that affect them are implemented.
  

The New Zealand Government has consistently opposed Article 3 which provides for the right to self determination, the requirement for free and informed consent and the right to lands and resources traditionally owned. The New Zealand representatives do not want to agree to anything that may differ from current domestic policy. By taking this position, they put at risk the individual and collective human rights of Maori and every Indigenous community across the globe. New Zealand has joined the US, Canada, Australia and the Russian Federation in opposing the adoption of the Declaration.