UN Working Group: Indigenous Peoples & the right of self-determination

Anne Keala Kelly is in Geneva at the Working Group on the International Human Rights Declaration for Indigenous Peoples and has filed a couple radio reports that so far that have aired on INN and FSRN.

A shorter version aired on INN Thursday, and longer version aired on FSRN Friday. Listen to these broadcasts for the whole program context, but I have also included just Keala's portions in the extended entry.

Here's the lede from the FSRN program:

On Monday in Geneva, indigenous peoples from all over the world, along with UN Ambassadors and state representatives reconvened the Working Group on the International Human Rights Declaration for Indigenous Peoples. As part of the UN's Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the draft was created in 1994, and has since been the basis for biannual gatherings. However, the pressure is on to come to a final agreement because the Human Rights Commission is being disbanded and will be replaced by a Council. But as Anne Keala Kelly reports, the conflict between indigenous peoples and the English-speaking member states of the United Nations makes consensus at this stage a distant dream.

The longer FSRN version includes discussion of "U.S. opposition to language that goes beyond adherence to domestic dependency and their incessant fear that Native Americans will demand independence from the U.S."

Alberto Saldamando of the International Indian Treaty Council says that, "the U.S. claim that the unqualified right of self-determination is a right of independence" is a "false fear" that is destroying the declaration.

(FYI, my wife Kekula was a delegate to the Working Group for several years in the late 90's, and the same issues were being debated back then.)

Note that what this means is that apparently the indigenous delegates are arguing that the right of self-determination for indigenous peoples does NOT include the right of independence.

Also, the fact that it is being debated in this forum points to the fact that indigenous peoples currently do NOT have an unqualified right to self-determination under international law in the first place.

This illustrates the reason why I have long maintained that Hawaii's independence within the framework of international law has nothing to do with aboriginal Hawaiians' indigenous status. In my opinion, the claim that Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people have a right to self-determination/independence has no foundation in international law, and is not the path to restored independence.

Hawaii was an internationally recognized country and no merger or dismemberment ever took place that terminated its sovereign independent identity. The legal continuity of the Hawaiian kingdom with all of its subjects, rather than the right of self-determination of Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people, is the basis for restoration of effective independence today.

I am not arguing that Native Hawaiians aren't indigenous (they are the indigenous population within the Hawaiian kingdom, not the United States), or that their indigenousness does not have profound value in other ways, just that this status alone doesn't give them the right to independence, as international law exists today.

It is their nationality as Hawaiian kingdom subjects, not their indigenousness, that provides the legal foundation to restore effective independence.

Longer version (including discussion of self-determination and independence):

Shorter version:

Posted: Sat - February 4, 2006 at 01:19 PM

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UN Working Group: Indigenous Peoples & the right of self-determination

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