Due to these injustices, international human rights efforts have sought to protect indigenous peoples, particularly in recent years.  However, there remains significant disagreement regarding the best method and framework to use.  A key question in this discussion is whether identity is defined through individual characteristics or through group membership.  The answer to this question helps determine whether group rights (in this case for indigenous groups) are truly necessary or whether the interests of groups are better served by vigorous enforcement of individual human rights. 

As such, discussions of indigenous rights necessarily raise important questions regarding the international human rights framework.  The classic liberal approach, which remains dominant today, emphasizes individual rights over collective rights.  In part, this is driven by the notion that the guarantee of rights for individuals will lead to rights for groups.  Human rights flow from the individual to the group rather than the other way around, i.e. identity is defined through individual characteristics, not group membership. 

However, despite this traditional focus on individual rights, protections for groups have become increasingly accepted in certain circumstances.  For instance, the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide specifically bans violence targeting a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group for destruction.  This convention reflects the growing notion that “membership of a minority community entails distinct human rights.”¹

Adopted in 1966, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights protects minorities’ rights to enjoy their own culture, practice their own religion, and use their own language.  Additionally, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, adopted in 1992, further extended the norm of granting rights to minorities.

Efforts to provide protections explicitly for indigenous peoples have only recently gained traction.  It was not until 1982 that a Working Group on Indigenous Peoples was formed under the United Nations Economic and Social Council.  Although a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was drafted in 1985, little progress was made until June 29, 2006, when the UN Human Rights Council adopted the Declaration. 

However, stiff resistance to the Declaration remains in the General Assembly, primarily by states worried that it could advance the claims of indigenous groups to independence, thereby impacting the territorial boundaries of these states.  This will be covered in more depth below.

For the full text of the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, see:

http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/indigenous/docs/declaration.doc.

1  Marks and Clapham, 45.

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