UN passes Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

PanARMENIAN.Net - The 143 members of the UN General Assembly voted for the non-binding Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that outlines the rights of some 370 million indigenous people worldwide.



Only the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia - all nations with large native populations - voted against the text, expressing concerns over some provisions, including those on self-determination and rights to land and resources. Eleven nations, including Russia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, abstained from the vote.



The passage of the Declaration creates no new rights and does not place indigenous people in a special category, but it does lay out their rights in a number of areas including culture, employment and language, while prohibiting discrimination against them.



The UN member states are concerned that indigenous peoples have been deprived of their human rights and fundamental freedoms, resulting, inter alia, in their colonization and the dispossession of their lands, territories and resources, thus preventing them from exercising, in particular, their right to development in accordance with their own needs and interests.



"Indigenous people have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development," the Declaration says.



"Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, economic, social and cultural characteristics, as well as their legal systems, while retaining their rights to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State," it says.



"Indigenous peoples shall not be forced from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible, with the option of return," it says.