Enhanced Participation of Indigenous Peoples at the UN: Pushing the Boundaries of Indigenous Rights, Statehood, and Human Rights Norms
March 28, 2024
502 1 Street South Lethbridge, AB
6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
In recent years, a grand debate has been raging between Kathryn Sikkink and Stephen Hopwood over the current status and future of human rights norms, with Hopgood arguing that a multipolar world of dispersed state power has created a limited environment for the global human rights model, and a new model must emerge, from the Global South, that replaces the old, Western-led model of human rights activism. Sikkink, on the other hand, asserts that the evidence suggests that agency has always been, and remains, the center of the story of human rights norms as the history of human rights has always been a struggle led by those who lack rights. While human rights scholars rarely consider Indigenous rights movements as anything other than one of many cases to be studied, Indigenous rights movements often demonstrate not only strategic savvy in global spaces, but they also have a long history of slipping into the “in-between” spaces of such grand debates and forging path-breaking, and radical, global change, often undetected. The most recent example is the movement for Indigenous peoples’ enhanced participation status in the United Nations.
Throughout the decades that Indigenous peoples have appeared at the UN, only two paths of participation have been available to them: representation by Member States, with whom they are often in conflict, or as non-governmental organizations. Indigenous peoples have not been allowed to represent themselves as nations at the UN. Indigenous peoples have been pushing for an independent status at the United Nations for some time. However, at the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples in 2014, an important shift occurred, as states also committed to making this a reality. In practice, enhanced participation would mean that Indigenous groups, who organize and advocate for themselves in international space, without representing or being represented by states or NGOs, would be engaged in a form of global political self-determination distinct from already existing channels. This paper will explore the process involved in advancing Indigenous peoples’ participation in the UN General Assembly, based on original fieldwork where I have attended drafting and consultation meetings on enhanced Indigenous peoples’ participation.
Throughout the decades that Indigenous peoples have appeared at the UN, only two paths of participation have been available to them: representation by Member States, with whom they are often in conflict, or as non-governmental organizations. Indigenous peoples have not been allowed to represent themselves as nations at the UN. Indigenous peoples have been pushing for an independent status at the United Nations for some time. However, at the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples in 2014, an important shift occurred, as states also committed to making this a reality. In practice, enhanced participation would mean that Indigenous groups, who organize and advocate for themselves in international space, without representing or being represented by states or NGOs, would be engaged in a form of global political self-determination distinct from already existing channels. This paper will explore the process involved in advancing Indigenous peoples’ participation in the UN General Assembly, based on original fieldwork where I have attended drafting and consultation meetings on enhanced Indigenous peoples’ participation.
