A year ago today, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Indigenous leaders, human rights advocates, and others celebrated the most significant development in international human rights law in decades.  Too many it was the end of 30 years of hard work.

But the UN’s adoption of the Declaration signaled a beginning rather than an ending.  For the first time, the international community recognized the rights of indigenous peoples as peoples under international human rights law.  It rejected the fiction that indigenous peoples were eventually going to disappear, and acknowledged indigenous nations as permanent governments.  Indigenous peoples finally had a right to exist, to self-determination, to land, to culture, and more.

A year later, there is much work still to be done.  It is not enough for these rights to be recognized under international law.  States need to implement these rights and incorporate them into their domestic legal frameworks.  Some states have made progress in this direction.  And every day, the principles in the Declaration are re-enforced by state actions, and they are quickly emerging as binding customary international law.

But these principles have yet to be universally accepted.  A year ago, the United States and Canada — two major international players with significant indigenous populations — voted against the adoption of the Declaration.  And today, they still have not accepted it.

As we continue the fight for the rights of Indian and Alaska Native nations, we can and should use the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Only our continued use of the Declaration will lead to the full implementation of the rights within it.  And such use will remind the United States and Canada that the rest of the world acknowledges our rights as indigenous peoples.

For more information on the UN Declaration, see the Indian Law Resource Center’s website: http://www.indianlaw.org/node/269

See the text of the UN Declaration here: http://www.indianlaw.org/sites/indianlaw.org/files/UN%20Declaration%20on%20the%20Rights%20of%20Indigenous%20Peoples.pdf