indigenous peoples

The landmark World Conference of Indigenous Peoples has been far from the limelight "during a frantic week in New York when world leaders gathered to discuss climate change and the security situation in Syria and Iraq," Radio Australia reports. Kalama Oka Aina Niheu, who is from Hawaii, told Radio Australia that the conference did not provide an avenue for indigenous peoples to voice their concerns about climate change and demilitarization because those issues were kept off that UN conference's agenda. The North American Indian Peoples caucus withdrew its support from the conference, she reports. As a result, she expressed a concern that the conference would be turned into an international version of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and "people who are going to be supported and uplifted in this process are going to be people who support extractive industries and who support mechanisms that actually disempower indigenous peoples," she said in the interview.

The United National General Assembly "approved a document strengthening the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide. The Outcome Document was endorsed by consensus at the start of the first World Conference on Indigenous Peoples," the Associated Press reports. Seven years ago, the UN also adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

According to the AP, Aili Keskitalo, president of the Sami Parliament in Norway, said that the outcome document recognizes that indigenous peoples will be allowed to participate in UN actions that affect their communities.

According to the Associated Press, the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation is being accused of violating a law meant to protect the cultural property of American Indian tribes. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has told the Interior Department to investigate if the bureau has violated the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which provides a way for American Indian remains and other cultural property to be returned to tribes out of federal custody. The law was enacted to rectify a history in which American Indian remains and sacred objects were scooped up into museum archives and the hands of government bureaucrats.

A whistleblower reported that the office was not keeping detailed records that would ensure the law functions the way it is supposed to, the AP reports.

The remains and artifacts were collected during the construction of dams and waterways in California, Nevada and Oregon, according to the AP.

The Canada Supreme Court ruled for the first time in favor of issuing a declaration of aboriginal title, or that an aboriginal group owns their land, David C. Nahwegahbow writes for CBC. The decision was in favor of the Tsilhqot'in Nation, who reside in the British Columbia province and who say they were not consulted about forestry operations within thier lands. According to Nahwegahbow, the Supreme Court rebuked with its ruling the doctrine of terra nullius, a theory that "espouses that Indigenous peoples were so uncivilized that they could not be seen in law to be true legal occupants and owners of their lands."

Intellectual property law doesn't protect the traditional knowledge and folklore of people, including indigenous peoples like American Indians. The problems vary: Who is the identifiable author or inventor if it's part of a group's culture? When did the work come into being if it's part of an oral tradition that changes? How can localized knowledge about the healing benefits of particular plants be patented if that use is already in the public sphere?

The World Intellectual Property Organization will be taking up international instruments aimed at protecting traditional knowledge and folklore from misappropriation, Intellectual Property Watch reports. Those instruments will be considered by the WIPO's General Assembly in September.

South Africa has enacted a new intellectual property law to protect traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression, according to a report in IT in Government. The law is seeking to extend traditional IP laws to protect indigenous knowledge, and South Africa will establish registries under which indigenous communities can register creative works and also receive licensing fees. However, Owen Dean, chairman of intellectual property law at the University of Stellenbosch, said IP law cannot protect traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression because "'all IP is based on a policy which says you want to encourage creativity, so you give creators an incentive: exclusive control for a limited period, before the work becomes public domain. Indigenous knowledge is reversed: nothing is identifiably creative, and rights are awarded perpetually,'" IT in Government further reported.

Intellectual Property Watch reports that "a panel addressing negotiators this week at the World Intellectual Property Organization asserted the property rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities over traditional knowledge and genetic resources and called on delegates to draft an international instrument compliant with their internationally recognised rights." The WIPO meeting took place this week.

James Anaya, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People, "criticised a proposal to exclude from disclosure requirement traditional knowledge in the public domain, and considered that databases or similar mechanisms might be useful but may not always be culturally appropriate, for instance where customary laws forbid disclosure to non-community members," Intellectual Property Watch further reported.

Europe has reached an agreement to protect traditional knowledge held by indigenous peoples, according to an agreement on Balkans.com: "The regulation will oblige users, such as private collectors and companies, academic researchers or scientific institutions, to check that genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge have been accessed legally and that the benefits are shared fairly and equitably, on the basis of mutually agreed terms."

United Nations Special Rapporteur James Anaya said at a meeting earlier this month that one of the challenges for indigenous peoples' health is "how indigenous women living near oil, gas and mining operations are '"vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, which are often introduced with a rapid increase of extractive workers in indigenous areas,'" The First Perspective, Canada's source for news about indigenous peoples, reports. Anaya, who is the rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, also noted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples requires "'in its articles 21, 22(1), 23 and 24 a framework for protecting and promoting indigenous peoples’ health. Together, these articles affirm indigenous peoples’ equal right to the 'highest attainable standard of physical and mental health' (art. 24); their right to improve their economic and social conditions (art. 21); and their right to 'determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development' (art. 23)."

Oxfam's Emily Greenspan writes about threats to a Peruvian law requiring the consultation of indigenous people before development occurs. Peru is apparently considering foregoing such consultation in its most productive oil block. "This would violate Peru’s indigenous peoples’ consultation law and the human rights of the indigenous communities inhabiting the area, as articulated in the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," Greenspan writes. There already has been extreme pollution in that block: "Oil companies have dumped millions of barrels of production waters directly into the Tigre, Corrientes, Pastaza, and Marañon rivers in Block 192 over the last four decades," Greenspan further writes.