United Nations Commission on Human Rights Fifty-seventh Session, March 19 - April 27, 2001 Oral intervention by the International Indian Treaty Council Agenda Item 7: The Right to Development

International Indian Treaty Council

CONSEJO INTERNACIONAL DE TRATADOS INDIOS

	“WORKING FOR THE RIGHTS AND RECOGNITION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES"

United Nations Commission on Human Rights
Fifty-seventh Session, March 19 - April 27, 2001
Oral intervention by the International Indian Treaty Council
Agenda Item 7: The Right to Development

Thank you Mr. Chairman. The Right to Development is a fundamental right affirmed in international law for all Peoples without qualification or discrimination. It is closely tied to the Right to Self Determination, which also affirms that all Peoples have the right to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

The Right to Development for Indigenous Peoples includes by necessity their right to freely determine the processes and forms of development which maintain and strengthen the traditional cultural, spiritual, social and economic relationships with the lands and ecosystems which provide the basis for their survival.

The UN Declaration on the Right to Development affirms in Article 1 that Peoples cannot fully realize the Right to Development without the exercise of self determination and "full sovereignty over their wealth and natural resources.". The 1990 UN Global Consultation on the Right to Development underscored that "the most destructive and prevalent abuses of Indigenous Rights are the direct consequences of development strategies that fail to respect their fundamental right of self-determination."

Certainly we agree that the most gross and flagrant violations continue to be suffered by Indigenous Peoples as a direct result of imposed development, resource appropriation and non sustainable practices carried out on their lands without their agreement or consent, and in many cases in spite of their adamant opposition

A glaring example is the ongoing impacts of imposed electricity generation on the Cree Peoples of Manitoba Canada. In 1974, the Churchill-Nelson River Hydro Project of the Manitoba Hydro Corporation was largely completed, diverting two major rivers, flooding lands, destroying sacred sites and wildlife habitats. It displaced several communities of Indigenous Peoples including the Pimicikamak Cree, whose right to development was fundamentally violated through the destruction of their traditional subsistence hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering sites and resources. The result is mass poverty, high unemployment, ill health and epidemic rates of suicide.

Despite these well documented impacts, Manitoba Hydro is now collaborating with Xcel Energy of Minnesota, United States to expand this project by diverting more rivers, constructing more dams and flooding even greater areas of this delicate boreal environment. The Pimicikamak Cree call upon the US and Canadian governments and citizens to examine the full social, cultural and environmental costs of this non sustainable form of electricity production, and to halt all further devastation. They point out that this area has rich wind resources and conservation potential, and that Canadian mega-hydropower is neither "renewable" or sustainable.

We remind the Commission that, in its April 7,1999 concluding observations under "Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties", the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concern regarding Canada's compliance with the Article 1 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with regards to Indigenous Peoples, stating "the rights of self-determination requires, inter alia, that all peoples must be able to freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources and that they may not be deprived of their own means of subsistence." (CPR/C/C/79/Add.105. 2).

In Canada and elsewhere around the world, imposed non sustainable energy production based on hydro-electric, coal, nuclear and oil results in toxic contamination of lands and waters, destruction of traditional food systems and means of subsistence, forced relocations, land appropriations and Treaty violations. At the same time, often as a direct result, Indigenous Peoples suffer some the worst health and mortality rates in the world, even in countries considered to have the highest levels of development.

For example, in northeastern US and Canada, Mohawk Indigenous women carry over 10,000 parts/million of PCBs in their bodies, which is passed to infants in the womb and through breast milk. In 2000, the United States National Academy of Sciences reported that an estimated 60,000 babies are born each year in the US with learning disabilities and neurological damage from mercury contamination, mainly from coal-fired power plant emissions into lakes and rivers contaminating fish eaten by pregnant mothers.

The South Dakota Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights reported in 2000 that men in Bangladesh have a higher life expectancy than Native American men in South Dakota, USA. Deaths from diseases such as tuberculosis and diabetes occur in US Indigenous communities at rates several times higher than in the general population. Infant mortality among American Indians is reported to be double the national average.

Mr. Chairman, in order to insure full exercise and recognition of their Right to Development, Indigenous Peoples must have formal, meaningful and direct participation in national policy decisions as well as relevant debates within the United Nations, its specialized agencies, international financial and trade bodies such as the World Bank and World Trade Organization. Indigenous Peoples can not consent to be "rubber stamps" for business as usual. Our survival is at stake.

In conclusion, we again urge the Rapporteur on the Right to Development to address as a matter of highest priority the impediments to full implementation of the Right to Development and the resulting human rights impacts for Indigenous Peoples around the world. We call upon the Rapporteur to focus immediate attention on the critical situations faced by the Pimicikamak Cree of Manitoba as well as the Quichua People of Sarayacu Ecuador impacted by petroleum exploration, which the IITC addressed along with several other urgent cases in our written intervention under this agenda item.

Thank you. For All Our Relations.