Indigenous Rights and United Nations Standards

The debate on indigenous rights has revealed some serious difficulties for current international law, posed mainly by different understandings of important concepts. This book explores the extent to which indigenous claims, as recorded in the United Nations fora, can be accommodated by current international law. By doing so, it also highlights how the indigenous debate has stretched the contours and ultimately evolved international human rights standards. The book first reflects on the international law responses to the theoretical arguments on cultural membership. After a comprehensive analysis of the existing instruments on indigenous rights, the discussion turns to self-determination. Different views are assessed and a fresh perspective on the right to self-determination is outlined. Ultimately, the author refuses to shy away from difficult questions and challenging issues and offers a comprehensive discussion of indigenous rights and their contribution to international law.

• Offers a comprehensive analysis of a very topical issue from the international law • Uses United National statements and materials that are not widely circulated • Offers a rare use of state practice from all over the world, rather than a few countries, to back up indigenous land claims

Introduction; 1. Recognition of cultural membership; 2. United Nations instruments on indigenous peoples; 3. Emerging law: the United Nations draft declaration on indigenous peoples; 4. Do indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination?; 5. Indigenous cultural rights; 6. Indigenous land rights; Conclusions.

\'… this book provides a useful introduction to indigenous rights.… It offers a helpful overview of a difficult subject, and may well whet the appetite of the interested student.\' Gordon Bennett