United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations
July 28 - August 4, 2006
Agenda Item 5: Standard-setting: (a) Future priorities for standard-setting activities; and (b) Possible new studies to be undertaken.
Joint Statement by the International Indian Treaty Council, Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations, Movimiento de la Juventud Kuna, International Organization of Indigenous Resource Development, Mohawk Nation of Kahnawake, Society for Threatened Peoples, Earth Peoples, Lao Human Rights Council, Buffalo River Dene Nation, Pacific Concerns Resources Center, Indigenous Environmental Network, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Sami Council, RAIPON, Yaquis Unidos por la Madre Tierra (Sonora Mexico), Dewanadat Apua Jayapura/Papua, Indigenous Peoples and Nations Coalition, Union de la Fuerza Indigena Campesina (Mexico), Fundacion para la Promocion del Conocimiento Indigena (Panama), Comite Intertribal Memória e Ciência Indígena/ITC (Brazil), Huicholes y Plaguicidas (Mexico), Consejo de Pueblos Nahuas del Alto Balsas (Guerrero Mexico), CONAIE (Confederacion de las Nacionalidades Indigenas de Ecuador/ Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador), and Centro para la autonomia y desarrollo de los pueblos indigenas-CADPI (Nicaragua)

Thank you Mr. Chairman. We call the attention of this Working Group to the urgent need for a review of current relevant Standards as well as a comprehensive new Study on the widespread and devastating impacts of the production, export and unmonitored use of banned, prohibited and dangerous toxics, especially pesticides, on the human rights of Indigenous Peoples around the world.

For exposed Indigenous communities, families and workers, a range of Human Rights are violated by these practices. These include the Rights of the Child under the Convention Article 24, the Rights to Health, Food Security, Development, Life, Physical Integrity, Free Prior Informed Consent and the Right of Peoples not to be Deprived of their own Means of Subsistence.

Infants and unborn babies are among the most seriously affected in exposed communities, and are particularly susceptible to such toxics when they are in their mothers’ wombs and as nursing infants. Cancers and birth defects in children are being reported in increasing numbers. Also widely reported are deaths among young children as well as adults from acute poisoning by exposure to toxic contamination via aerial spraying of crops, and the unmonitored and unregulated use and storage of dangerous pesticides in rural communities. The development, health and potential of our Future Generations is at stake.

Industrialized countries such as the United States produce and export of toxic chemicals to “developing” countries even after they have been banned in their own countries due to known serious health effects. Existing International Trade Policies as well as Environmental Conventions such as the Rotterdam Convention permit countries to export toxic chemicals and pesticides which have been banned for use in the producing country as long as the receiving countries are informed of the dangers. But no assurances are made by either the producing or receiving states that these warnings will reach the exposed workers, communities or families, that mandated regulatory measures to protect them will be enforced, or the principle of free prior informed consent will be observed.

The International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health noted that between 1996 and 2000, the United States exported nearly 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides identified as known or suspected carcinogens, an average rate of almost 16 tons per hour. Most were sent to the developing world for use in agriculture. According to the International Labor Organization, 65 to 90 percent of the children estimated to be working in Africa, Asia and Latin America are working in agriculture. These children are often continuously exposed to toxic pesticides in the fields, in their food and water, and in their homes.

In 1997 in Sonora, Mexico, a study was conducted by a University of Arizona scientist in homelands of the Yaqui Indians. This study detected high levels of multiple pesticides in the cord blood of newborns and in mother’s milk, and found severe learning and development disabilities in Yaqui children living in agricultural areas.

Testimonies presented by Indigenous communities in Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia, Ecuador, the United States and other countries document the use of banned pesticides without precautionary measures or protective gear, including aerial spraying of fields with workers and families present, as well as communities, homes and schools. Severe permanent birth defects, childhood leukemia and children born with tumors are among the most severe and rapidly increasing effects reported.

Because these toxics bio-accumulate, persist and travel in the environment, Arctic Indigenous Peoples report high levels of contamination of mothers’ breast milk and subsistence foods. Recent studies done in Canada also documented higher than acceptable levels of these toxins in the blood and cells of a cross-section of young people. This is clearly a global problem affecting large numbers of Indigenous Peoples with permanently damaging and widespread impacts on the enjoyment of their human rights.

We greatly appreciates the concern of Special Rapporteur Madame Ouhachi-Vesely and her successor Mr. Okechukwu Ibeanu, UN Rapporteur on the Adverse Effects of the Illicit Movement and Dumping of Toxic and Dangerous Products and Wastes on the Enjoyment of Human Rights, regarding the impacts of the export of banned pesticides for Indigenous communities in Mexico and other countries.
During her visit to the United States in December 2001 Madame Ouhachi-Vesely expressed strong words for the US practice of exporting chemicals, pesticides, and waste banned domestically to developing nations. “Allowing the export of products recognized to be harmful is immoral," she said.
Rapporteur Ibeanu likewise expressed his concerns in a written statement presented at a recent conference coordinated by IITC in Potam Pueblo, Rio Yaqui, attended by over 300 participants from impacted Indigenous communities in Mexico, US and Guatemala. He confirmed that the use of such chemicals in communities left “individuals and communities unable to make informed choices”, in some cases “further aggravating conditions of poverty” because of their negative impacts on human health and the environment.

We therefore urgently request this session of the WGIP to initiate a Study on the Global Human Rights impacts of the export, use and failure by states to monitor dangerous and banned pesticides and other toxics, and the failure to safeguard the human health and development of Indigenous Peoples as a result. We also call upon the WGIP to request that the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights organize a Conference on this issue in 2007, in conjunction with the relevant Special Rapporteurs, in order to evaluate the problem, assess the Human Rights impacts in light of relevant international and national standards and recommend additional remedies or standards to this body as required.

Thank you for your consideration of this critical matter affecting Indigenous Peoples around the world. For all our Relations.