Press Release here. And the text:

Amnesty International, National Assembly of First Nations File Briefs in Support

LADYSMITH, BC, Oct. 5, 2011 /CNW/ – In an unprecedented action, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS) will hear a human rights complaint brought by six British Columbia First Nations, charging Canada with the uncompensated taking of their ancestral territory for the benefit of private forestry and development corporations on Vancouver Island. The Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group (HTG), comprised of the Cowichan Tribes, Lake Cowichan First Nation, Halalt First Nation, Penelakut Tribe, Lyackson First Nation and the Stz’uminus First Nation, has accused Canada of violating the human rights of its 6,400 members by failing to recognize and protect their rights to property, culture and religion, as recognized under the OAS’ principal human rights instrument, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. Canada has been a member of the OAS since 1989.

According to Robert Morales, Chief Negotiator for the HTG, Canada, despite repeated protests, continues to permit widespread clear-cutting, deforestation and environmentally destructive development activities throughout their ancestral territory by three major forestry development companies, TimberWest Forest Corporation, Hancock Timber Resource Group and Island Timberlands. The three corporations are the major successors in interest to Canada’s 1884 grant of over 237,000 hectares of Hul’qumi’num lands containing valuable timber, coal and other resources to the E&N railroad corporation. Today, those companies control nearly 190,000 hectares, roughly 2/3 of the HTG members’ ancestral territory. The HTG has submitted extensive evidence to the human rights body documenting the companies’ clear-cutting operations, which it claims go unregulated by the government, while causing the relentless destruction of the traditional way of life, culture, and religious practices of the HTG communities.

HTG’s human rights complaint charges that under Canada’s Comprehensive Land Claims Policy, relied upon by the government since 1973 in negotiating treaties with First Nations, so-called “private lands” owned by the large timber, mineral and real estate development companies are “off the table.” The government refuses to negotiate over the return or replacement of these lands, and, under its land claims policy, will not discuss compensation at the treaty table.  HTG also charges that Canada refuses to consult with HTG, as required under well-established principles of international human rights law, before allowing the forestry companies to permanently destroy their lands and resources, with no benefits provided to the HTG First Nations.

Prominent international human rights groups, including Amnesty International, and over a dozen Canadian First Nations governments and organizations, including the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), have filed briefs supporting HTG. First Nations leaders and human rights experts predict that a victory in the case for HTG could throw the government’s entire process for negotiating and implementing treaties involving land claims with First Nations across Canada into serious question.

Robert A. Williams, Jr., a law professor and Director of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program of the University of Arizona, is representing HTG as lead counsel in the case. He believes that a  favorable decision for HTG in the case “will vindicate the position of First Nations leaders and communities throughout Canada that the Comprehensive Land Claims Policy needs to be scrapped in favor of a process that complies with international human rights standards for the recognition and protection of First Nations’ peoples in their ancestral lands.”

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