CONSEJO INTERNACIONAL DE TRATADOS INDIOS

UN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Fifty-ninth session, March 17-April 25, 2003

Written Intervention by the International Indian Treaty Council and the Indigenous Environmental Network

Agenda Item #17: Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (d) Science and Environment 

The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) and its affiliate, the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), address the serious and continued deterioration of the global environmental and related social impacts as they relate to the rights of Indigenous peoples to live in a safe, healthy and sustainable environment.  Since 1992, the discussions of sustainable development, environment and poverty have intensified. However, the ecosystems of our Mother Earth continue to be degraded increasingly.

The world is in a crisis. We are in an accelerating spiral of: global warming; lost of biodiversity; deforestation; unsustainable mining and mineral extractions; flooding of lands from large dams; depletion of water sources; toxic and radioactive contamination of our water, land, wildlife, fish and the bodies of our women and children; continued introduction of genetically modified organisms into the environment; and an accelerating spiral of terrorism and war, that brings with it environmental, social and cultural damage. 

Indigenous peoples comprise five percent of the world’s population, but represent 90% of the world’s cultural diversity.  Indigenous peoples are estimated to occupy 20% of the world’s land surface, but nurture 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. Indigenous peoples are at the cutting edge of the crisis in environment and sustainable development.

Our communities once were examples of sustainable societies, historically evolved in diverse ecosystems. Today, Indigenous peoples face human rights abuses through environmental injustices.  We face either extinction or survival and renewal in a globalized world.

Our territories and natural and spiritual resources are the fundamental basis for our physical and cultural existence. Many of our spiritual and cultural practices and maintenance of our languages are centered on our access to our traditional lands, and historically, culturally and spiritually significant places.  Any disruption to the delicate balance of Mother Earth has serious effects on our deeply ingrained spiritual and cultural relationship with our lands, waters, wildlife and territories. Many Indigenous cultures derive our family, clan or kinship identifications from certain wildlife and food groups.

Diverse instruments of positive international law and some normative processes recognize our particular and specific collective rights as peoples. We should be full beneficiaries of these already established rights. However, despite being guardians of Mother Earth, in practice, our rights to recover, administer, protect and develop our lands, waters, territories and natural resources are denied. Furthermore, this denial hinders, limits and/or restricts our rights to conserve, recreate, project and transmit the totality of our cultural heritages to future generations, thus, constituting a grave violation of our right to exist as peoples and to be able to practice our culture.

We must mention the recent 2002 United Nations Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) that failed to establish an adequate Plan of Implementation for commitments, targets and timetables.  Such a plan, had it been implemented, had the potential to rebalance today's crisis in the environment and create emerging structures of global governance as an alternative to a single-minded focus on freeing international commerce.  What was required was a clear mandate for global commitment based on a broad concept of progress, taking environmental, social sustainability, human rights and the rights of Indigenous peoples into account.

The WSSD Plan of Implementation did endorse a decision to strengthen the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for more effective environmental coordination within the United Nations system.  We call for the UNEP to develop a mechanism for the active and effective participation of Indigenous peoples to discuss issues, provide expert advice and recommendations on environmental issues within UNEP.

The WSSD Plan of Implementation also called for more cooperation between the United Nations and the international financial institutions closely identified with globalization such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. It remains unclear how this new collaboration will be brought about and what its practical implications might be concerning the rights and concerns of Indigenous peoples. This includes clarifying the relationship between environmental treaties and global trade rules that affect the rights of Indigenous peoples, our lands and environment.

Trade rules are clashing with environmental standards, undermining national environmental protections and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs).  While growth in trade, foreign investment, and economic relationships among states can bring significant benefits, the process of economic globalization is also leading to serious problems affecting the rights of Indigenous peoples.  Natural resources, intellectual property rights of Indigenous knowledge, fisheries, environment and public health of Indigenous peoples are overexploited and unprotected as they are subjected to global market demands. MEAs are a critical part of global environmental governance that must be strengthened to ensure sustainable development and protection of the environment and the rights of Indigenous peoples. MEAs should not be undermined by decisions taken in trade negotiations or dispute settlement decisions.

Activities of private corporations are increasingly contributing to human rights violations and environmental degradation of Indigenous peoples and our lands. Corporations often contribute to governmental actions that remove Indigenous peoples from their lands, fail to implement pollution control measures, suppress local activists who question the impacts of their activities, and produce and export chemicals banned in their own country that they know will cause serious health problems in the country of import.

Human rights and environmental abuses are often perpetrated in the name of development, as past experience with projects of multilateral institutions like those that the World Bank has demonstrated. Indigenous peoples both in developed and developing countries are further marginalized by projects such as large dams, mining, oil drilling or gas pipelines that claim to reduce poverty, but instead displace local communities and exploit their natural resource base.

The theft and patenting of Indigenous Peoples' bio-genetic resources is facilitated by the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO).  Some of the plants which Indigenous Peoples have discovered, cultivated, and used for food, medicine, and for sacred ceremonies since time immemorial have already been patented in the United States, Japan and Europe. A few examples of these are ayahuasca, quinoa, and sangre de drago in South America; Kava in the Pacific; turmeric and bitter melon in Asia.  Incredibly, even Indigenous Peoples' cell lines and genomes, harvested without prior informed consent, have been patented and are being marketed by international biotechnology companies in one of the fastest growing areas of the biotechnology industry.

Indigenous Peoples access to and control over their biological diversity, traditional knowledge and intellectual heritage are threatened by the TRIPS Agreement.  IITC/IEN recommend to this Commission as a starting point for better understanding these issues from a human rights based approach of the TRIPS Agreement can be found in UN document (E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/13).  Article 27.3 (b) of the TRIPS Agreement allows patenting of life-forms and makes an artificial distinction between plants, animals, and micro-organisms, as well as between "essentially biological" and "non-biological" processes.  Indigenous Peoples maintain that these life forms and life creating processes are sacred and indivisible, and should not become the subject of private property ownership. 

The IITC/IEN and its affiliate organizations reiterate to this Commission that Article 27.3 (b) of the WTO should be amended to categorically disallow the patenting of life forms as a human rights violation.  It should clearly prohibit the patenting of micro organisms, plants, animals, including all their parts, including genes, gene sequences, cells, cell lines, proteins, and seeds.  It should also prohibit the patenting of natural processes, whether these are biological or micro biological, involving the use of plants, animals and micro-organisms.  The TRIPS should ensure the exploration and development of alternative forms of protection outside the dominant western intellectual property rights regime.

Furthermore, Article 27.3 (b) must be changed to insure that the protection offered to Indigenous and traditional knowledge, innovations and practices is consistent with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) specifically in Articles 8 (j), 10 (c), 17.2, and 18.4, and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources.  It should allow for the right of Indigenous Peoples and farmers to continue their traditional practices of saving, sharing and exchanging seeds, and cultivation, harvesting and using medicinal plants.  In addition, it should also prohibit scientific researchers and corporations from appropriating and patenting Indigenous seeds, medicinal plants, and related knowledge about these life forms. 

Indigenous peoples suffer human rights and environmental abuses when national and state laws do not recognize their rights, including their rights to their land and natural resources. As the linkages between environment, human rights and the rights of Indigenous peoples becomes more apparent, it is increasingly difficult to differentiate between environmental injustices and human rights abuses. We call for international mechanisms and instruments that provide for government and corporate accountability and transparency in decision-making affecting the environment and ecosystem in bioregions that sustain Indigenous peoples. The full participation of our communities in all stages and at all levels of decision-making and assessment of development projects must be required so that Indigenous Peoples can assert our right to free, prior and informed consent as a fundamental principle of the exercise of our human rights and self-determination.