Increasing involvement

Human Rights Commission. Its two-fold mandate included the annual review of recent developments pertaining to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous peoples, as well as the development of international standards regarding the human rights of Indigenous peoples (UN ECOSOC 1982). The Working Group on Indigenous Populations was composed of five independent human rights experts of the Sub-Commission representing the five regional groupings of the UN.²⁰ During its first session, the WGIP decided on rules of procedure which allowed for the participation of Indigenous organizations regardless of their formal status with ECOSOC²¹ in what has been called a “revolutionary” move and

“pioneering process” (Morgan 2011: 111). The establishment of a UN Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations (VFIP, Voluntary Fund) in 1985, which financially supported Indigenous participants of the working group sessions, further facilitated and enhanced Indigenous involvement (Dreher 1995: 39–40).²² This made the WGIP the body with the largest attendance by NSAs – and even more so of APOs – within the UN system. During

20 The five regional groupings of states normally used at the United Nations are: Africa; Asia; Eastern Europe; Latin America and the Caribbean; and Western Europe and Other States (which includes the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia). While the experts of Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Latin America are considered to have been very active, the Asian and African experts were not very interested in Indigenous issues. This was possibly due to the fact that many of them came from countries which argued that they did not have Indigenous populations (Minde 2007: 26).

21 During the first years of the WGIP’s existence, some states threatened to discontinue the practice; this however never materialized (Stamatopoulou 1994: 68). It is considered to have been one of the success factors for the WGIP.

22 The Voluntary Fund provides financial assistance to representatives of Indigenous communities and organizations in order to enable their participation in the deliberations of the Working Group (and nowadays in a number of other meetings). From 1995-2004, around 560 Indigenous delegates benefited from monetary support to attend WGIP sessions. However, critics highlight that due to financial

constraints only a small number of eligible applications can be supported (Corntassel 2007: 155). The Voluntary Fund is administered by a Board of Trustees, which is made up by five experts on Indigenous issues. Remarkably, one of the experts has to be a representative of a widely recognized organization of Indigenous peoples. Hence, the Fund constitutes the first UN entity which explicitly required membership by an Indigenous person. In practice, this provision on Indigenous membership has even been exceeded.

Currently, for the period 2018-2020, all members of the Board are Indigenous persons. For information on the Voluntary Fund see

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IPeoples/IPeoplesFund/Pages/IPeoplesFundIndex.aspx, accessed 24.01.2019.

the 1980s, its sessions already attracted more participants than those of any other human rights body (Sanders 1989: 408–410); in 2004 numbers of registered observers had risen to over 1000 (Corntassel 2007: 153). The elaboration of an international instrument on Indigenous rights, namely the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, soon became the main task of the Working Group (Barsh 1986:

372–373), and its compilation has been considered as its most important success (García-Alix 2003: 51). It has been argued that the participation rights Indigenous groups secured in the WGIP “validated the voices of indigenous peoples”, thus constituting a status quo behind which UN institutions couldn’t fall back anymore (Lâm 2000: 82).

The 1990s were characterized by an increasing interest of the UN system in Indigenous issues. Taking up an idea that had surged at the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the General Assembly (GA) declared 1993 International Year for the World’s Indigenous People under the motto “A New Partnership”. The goal of the International Year was to improve international cooperation for the solution of problems faced by IPs, through their enhanced participation in the planning, implementation and evaluation of activities (UN General Assembly 1990). Following recommendations made at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, the GA proclaimed the years 1995-2004 an Indigenous Decade themed “Indigenous People:

Partnership in Action” which continued to work for the achievement of the goals that had been set out for the international year. Governments and the UN system were invited to mainstream Indigenous issues in their activities, and to develop specific programs to benefit Indigenous peoples (UN General Assembly 1996b). While the Decade has been accused as purely symbolic by some, referring especially to the non-adoption of a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Corntassel 2007), others have pointed to achievements such as the creation of a Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues or a Special Rapporteur (see below for a discussion of both) or the launch of the Indigenous Fellowship Program, a human rights training course for Indigenous Fellows by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) (Morgan 2011: 28).

The work initiated was continued in a consecutive Second International Decade (2005-2014).

A review of existing mechanisms, procedures and programs concerning Indigenous issues carried out in 1996 found that even when UN bodies carried out activities

concerning Indigenous peoples, these remained largely unknown to IPs. Aside from the WGIP, few bodies ever scheduled regular meetings on Indigenous affairs, had relevant policy guidelines²³ or offered participation opportunities on a regular basis for Indigenous representatives (UN General Assembly 1996a). Nevertheless, the number of fora in which IPs actively participated began to increase during the 1990s. This included their presence at the big World Conferences of the 1990s, most prominently at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro and the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna. Moreover, Indigenous organizations, especially those with ECOSOC consultative status, increasingly made use of the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations, namely the Commission on Human Rights (which covered Indigenous issues as a separate agenda item from 1996 onwards), the Human Rights Committee, and CERD (García-Alix 2003: 37–42).

As one of the most important processes during these years, Indigenous organizations also engaged in the Intersessional Working Group to elaborate a draft declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples (WGDD) (UN ECOSOC 1995).²⁴ In the process of elaboration, the WGDD was supposed to take into account the draft prepared by the WGIP. Participation in the WGDD was open to all states which were members of the Commission of Human Rights (CHR). To enable Indigenous participation at WGDD sessions, the CHR established a fast-track accreditation process for Indigenous peoples’

organizations (IPOs) without consultative status with ECOSOC.²⁵ Through this process, over 100 IPOs participated in the drafting of the declaration. Beyond gaining access, Indigenous peoples also succeeded in re-negotiating working methods, so as to require consensus by all the participants (including the Indigenous ones) for the adoption of articles (Morgan 2011: 112). Thus, Indigenous involvement at the WGDD has been praised as facilitating “unprecedented levels of inclusiveness and participation, allowing not only for the extensive input of indigenous perspectives as to the content of their rights but also some degree of control over decision-making” (Morgan 2011: 41). In 2007, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was adopted by the

23 World Bank operational directive 4.20 and ILO Conventions 107 and 169 constituted exceptions.

24 For an Indigenous perspective on the work of the WGDD and Indigenous participation in it, see Åhrén (2007).

25 This was considered particularly important as in 1995 only 12 Indigenous organizations held ECOSOC consultative status (Morgan 2011: 112).

General Assembly with 143 states in favour, 4 against and 11 abstentions.²⁶ The final document, although a compromise, codifies the minimum standards that IPs had insisted upon (Burger 2019: 1). It has even been argued that the Declaration strongly reflects an Indigenous point of view (Morgan 2011: 1).