Here.
Prepared remarks of Mr. Harper are here.
international law
USA / Indigenous peoples: UN expert urges respect for the rights of Cherokee child in custody dispute
Here.
Response from the U.S. Mission to the UN here.
GENEVA (10 September 2013) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, today called on the relevant state, federal and tribal authorities in the United States of America to take all necessary measures to ensure the wellbeing and human rights of ‘Veronica,’ an almost four year old Cherokee child at the center of a highly contentious custody dispute.
“Veronica’s human rights as a child and as member of the Cherokee Nation, an indigenous people, should be fully and adequately considered in the ongoing judicial and administrative proceedings that will determine her future upbringing,” Mr. Anaya stressed. “The individual and collective rights of all indigenous children, their families and indigenous peoples must be protected throughout the United States.”
Veronica is currently facing judicially ordered removal from her Cherokee family and community. In June of this year the US Supreme Court ruled that certain protections of the Indian Child Welfare Act did not apply to proceedings in which a non-Cherokee couple sought to adopt Veronica, given the particular circumstances of the case. The high court, however, it did not make an ultimate determination of the disposition of the adoption proceedings.
Following the Supreme Court decision, a South Carolina state court awarded custody of Veronica to the non-Cherokee couple, but it did so without a determination of whether her transfer away from her Cherokee family would be in her best interests in light of her current situation and Cherokee heritage. Although Veronica lived with the non-Cherokee couple in South Carolina for the first two years of her life, she has now resided with her father and extended indigenous family in Cherokee territory in the state of Oklahoma for nearly two years.
South Carolina authorities have attempted to force Veronica’s father to release custody of her, charging him with custodial interference for his refusal to do so. On 3 September 2013 the Oklahoma Supreme Court took up the case, granting a temporary stay of an enforcement order and allowing the father to keep Veronica pending further proceedings.
“I urge the relevant authorities, as well as all parties involved in the custody dispute, to ensure the best interests of Veronica, fully taking into account her rights to maintain her cultural identity and to maintain relations with her indigenous family and people,” said the UN Special Rapporteur.
The independent expert pointed out that these rights are guaranteed by various international instruments subscribed to or endorsed by the US, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
In his 2012 report* on the situation of indigenous peoples in the US, the Special Rapporteur noted that the removal and separation of Indian children from indigenous environments is an issue of longstanding and ongoing concern. “While past practices of removal of Indian children from their families and communities have been partially blunted by passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978, this law continues to face barriers to its implementation,” Mr. Anaya stated.
“I encourage the United States to work with indigenous peoples, state authorities and other interested parties to investigate the current state of affairs relating to the practices of foster care and adoption of indigenous children, and to develop procedures for ensuring that the rights of these children are adequately protected,” the UN Special Rapporteur said.
The UN Human Rights Council appointed S. James Anaya as Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples in March 2008. Mr. Anaya is a Regents Professor and the James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy at the University of Arizona (United States). As Special Rapporteur, he is independent from any government or organization and serves in his individual capacity. Learn more, log on to: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IPeoples/SRIndigenousPeoples/Pages/SRIPeoplesIndex.aspx
(*) Check the Special Rapporteur’s 2012 report on the USA: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session21/Pages/ListReports.aspx
See the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open&DS=A/RES/61/295&Lang=E
UN Human Rights Country Page – United States of America: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/ENACARegion/Pages/USIndex.aspx
For more information and media inquiries, please contact Maia Campbell (+ 41 22 917 9314 / mcampbell@ohchr.org) or write to indigenous@ohchr.org.
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts:
Xabier Celaya, OHCHR Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 / xcelaya@ohchr.org)
Law Article Comparing Indigenous Rights in the U.S. and Canada
Here. (pdf) Published in the McGill Law Journal.
By former ILPC Fellow and current VA Tribal Government Relations Specialist (and sometimes Canadian correspondent to Turtle Talk), Peter Vicaire.
Submission to UN Human Rights Committee on Rights Abuses of American Indian Prisoners
Today is International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples
“We must ensure the participation of indigenous peoples – women and men – in decision-making at all levels. This includes discussions on accelerating action towards achieving theMillennium Development Goals and defining the post-2015 development agenda. ”
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Link to the UN announcement and New York events here.
Article from NNN with James Anaya speaking about broken treaties here.
In honor of the day, Cultural Survival, First Peoples Worldwide, and International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) are coming together for an online panel discussion to talk about Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM EST. To be a part of it register here.
Alta Outcome Document Released in Preparation for 2014 World Conference on Indigenous Peoples
Indigenous peoples from around the world today issued a common position for the high-level plenary meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, also known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, to be held at New York Headquarters from 22 to 23 September 2014.
The “Alta Outcome Document” is a set of recommendations adopted by the Global Indigenous Preparatory Conference in Alta, Norway. Indigenous peoples from the seven regions of the world — Asia; Africa; North America; Central and South America and the Caribbean; Eastern Europe, Russian Federation, Central Asia and Transcaucasia; the Arctic; and the Pacific, as well as the Indigenous Women and Youth Caucuses — gathered in Alta at a global meeting organized by the Saami Parliament of Norway.
“This is a crucial step leading up to the World Conference,” said Paul Kanyinke Sena, Chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. “By formulating a common position, indigenous peoples have given their voices added strength and relevance in the dialogues that will make up the World Conference.”
Link to press release here.
Link to a pdf copy of the document here.
Q&A with James Anaya on Implementing Prior Consent with Indigenous Peoples
Most of the questions relate to implementation of this standard in Latin America, but his answers to the final two questions were particularly interesting to me, and applicable to many nations that are being called on to implement the prior consent standard.
Q: Do you think the state would lose its sovereignty if an indigenous community has the last word on whether or not an investment project can be undertaken on their territory?
A: The state does not lose its sovereignty if it respects human rights or indigenous rights. It has to comply with these rules to respect those rights; the state cannot do whatever it wants.
I would say that the respect of these rights is a way of ensuring that this sovereignty is exercised. When the state respects human rights, it exercises its sovereignty, because it is acting in favour of its citizens and peoples.
Q: Nevertheless, there has been a loss of trust in governments. What can be done to ensure legitimate consultations and to open up dialogue?
A: The mistrust and prejudice need to be overcome. It is a matter of creating open processes where indigenous peoples can voice their opinions and influence decisions, and where there is the necessary will to seek consensus.
The problem is that sometimes there is a belief that consent is about saying yes or no, about who wins. Consent is linked to consultation; the purpose of consultation is to reach consent, to reach consensus. It is not a question of one side imposing its opinion on the other.
UN Working Group, Navajo Nation Collaborate on Human Rights Issues
The rest of the article can be found here. Previous coverage here.On April 27, in an official visit to the United States, a United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights met with the Navajo Nation’s human rights experts and others in Flagstaff, Arizona. The Navajo representatives reported on two situations facing the Navajo people:Arizona Snowbowl, a ski resort that has begun a much-opposed project to spray treated wastewater on the sacred San Francisco Peaks, and predatory lending issues surrounding the lending group Santander Consumer USA.
New Paper from Kirsty Gover, “Indigenous Membership and Human Rights: When Self-Identification Meets Self-Constitution”
Abstract:
Rules and principles governing indigenous membership have a dual aspect. First, a group’s capacity to decide its own membership is an essential element of indigenous self-governance. Second, a person’s claim to membership is sometimes supported by human rights, especially the right to enjoy one’s culture in community with other members of a minority. Because of this duality, in some instances, the interests of a self-constituting group and the interests of a self-identifying individual are directly opposed. In this chapter I argue that international human rights norms, jurisprudence and methodologies have not generated principles that could assist states and tribes in the governance of indigenous membership disputes. While the structure and ideology of international human rights law is such that the interests of tribes (and tribal members) are almost always subordinated to the interests of aspirant members and the public, CANZUS states (the affluent western settler states of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States) have been able to augment domestic human rights law in order to provide normative space for tribal self-constitution. This, I argue, contributes to the development of a distinctive settler-state political theory which is premised on the cardinal importance of indigeneity and tribalism in settler-state constitutionalism, and on the enduring relevance of descent as a source of political and legal status in settler societies. I draw primarily on examples from the public and tribal law of membership in the CANZUS states and on the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee that oversees the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the ICCPR). I take a closer look at the interplay of HRC jurisprudence and the domestic law of Canada, by examining the origins and aftermath of Lovelace v. Canada (HRC, 1981).
New Book by Walter Echo-Hawk, “In the Light of Justice,” Out This Summer
Walter Echo-Hawk’s new book, In the Light of Justice: The Rise of Human Rights in Native America & the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with a foreword by James Anaya, will be published this August.
Echo-Hawk and Anaya are doing a book launch event on June 12 at the annual conference of the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums held at Santa Ana Pueblo.
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