CONSEJO INTERNACIONAL DE TRATADOS INDIOS

United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Fifty-sixth session

20 March - 28 April, 2000,

Agenda Item 5,  The Right of Self Determination and its Application to Peoples under Colonial or Alien Domination or Foreign Occupation

Oral intervention by the International Indian Treaty Council

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Thank you Mr. President,

The International Indian Treaty Council once again addresses before the Commission the right of Self Determination, upon which the exercise of all other rights and fundamental freedoms is based and founded.

The International Indian Treaty Council whishes to call the attention of the members of the Commission to the written intervention we have submitted under this agenda item, which clearly underscores the unwavering position of our organization, shared by all the Indigenous organizations and Peoples who have participated in the United Nations system, that Indigenous Peoples are clearly the subjects of the right to Self determination affirmed in international law of as the alienable right of all Peoples, despite the continued reluctance of some states to recognize us as deserving of this recognition.

As we have stated in our written intervention addressing this issue, we are gratified to see that 

despite the reluctance by some states in this regard, human rights standards continue to evolve.

We emphasize and call attention in particular to the very significant concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee on the Government of Canada’ s fourth periodic report on its observance of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). (CCPR/C/79/add.105, 7 April 1999).

As the treaty monitoring body of the ICCPR, the Human Rights Committee examined the application of the right of self determination to Indigenous Peoples in Canada.  Pointedly, the Committee, upon examination of Canada’s compliance with the ICCPR with regard to Indigenous Peoples, urged the Canadian government to “ report adequately on the implementation of article 1 of the Covenant in its next periodic report.”

Noting that the situation of  Indigenous Peoples remained the “ most pressing human rights issue facing Canadians,” the Human Rights Committee emphasized in its Concluding Observations,

“  ...that the right of self determination requires, inter alia, that all peoples must be able to freely dispose of their natural wealth, and that they may not be deprived of their means of subsistence,” requirements of Article 1 of the Covenant.

Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, we reiterate before you today that applicability of the Right of Self Determination to Indigenous Peoples can now no longer be denied.  The Human Rights Committee, by the terms of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is the arbiter of the proper application of the rights recognized in the Covenant by state parties.  The Human Rights Committee has, in this response, openly and unqualifiedly recognized Indigenous Peoples as subjects of Article 1 in Common and the right of Self Determination.

We restate without hesitation once again, that without a full recognition of all of the rights recognized by international law as applicable to Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples would have no moral force or legitimacy.  Without a full and unqualified, non-discriminatory recognition of the Right of Self Determination as applying to all Peoples including Indigenous Peoples, the legitimacy of international standard setting itself would be called into question, not only denying the long-standing, legitimate aspirations of Indigenous Peoples but the common aspirations of humankind.

For all our Relations.