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Australia must adopt UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

• Published on 3/09/2007
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Australia is among a group of 7 states delaying the final adoption of the important and long overdue United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Amnesty International believes support for the adoption of the Declaration is a critical step toward ending the pervasive human rights violations faced by Indigenous peoples. The Declaration calls on states to work closely with Indigenous peoples in ensuring protection of rights pertaining to self-determination, education, cultural identity, and the use of lands, territories and resources essential to Indigenous peoples' livelihoods and ways of living.

It was adopted by the newly-formed UN Human Rights Council on 29 June 2006, and is expected to come before the UN General Assembly for final adoption within a matter of weeks.

Australia, Canada, Colombia, Guyana, New Zealand, the Russian Federation and Suriname have publicly called for further negotiations to redraft the central provisions of the Declaration.

Not only would such a process lead to unacceptable delays in the adoption of the Declaration, it would run the risk of the Declaration never being adopted at all or of its provisions being so weakened and undermined that Indigenous peoples would be denied the protection they need and to which they are entitled.

The Declaration has been under development for more than two decades within the United Nations. Throughout that period, there has been growing recognition among international human rights bodies that urgent measures are needed to address centuries of dispossession, impoverishment and marginalisation faced by Indigenous peoples around the world.

Comments

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The older I get the more cynical I become and after reading this I’ve just become a lot more cynical. If twenty years is not enough to get it right, how long is?

comment by:

Robin Davis
08/09/2007
11:30 AM

At last.. something about indigenous Australians. Would it be possible to follow the good example of Craig Benjamin (Amnesty International- Canada) who at provides an excellent focus on indigenous issues?

comment by:

sonia smallacombe
06/09/2007
06:06 AM

I was just wondering, with an election pending in the next 10 weeks, and the current government suffering badly in the opinion polls, what the opposition’s policy regarding this is?

comment by:

Jennifer McNiven
04/09/2007
12:43 PM

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