The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

At its plenary meeting of 13 September 2007 the General Assembly (GA) of the United Nations (UN) adopted the text of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (hereinafter UNDRIP or Declaration) (Allen and Xanthaki 2011). The Declaration was not adopted by consensus, and the text went to the vote, showing that some states had several concerns in relation to its content. The result was 144 states in favour, four against (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America—USA), and 11 abstentions. ¹ The Declaration can be considered the first comprehensive internationally agreed document that deals with the rights of indigenous peoples, despite the fact that it does not have legally binding force attached to it. It was the result of 25 years of international action, campaigning and debate in favour of indigenous peoples’ rights (Stamatopoulou 1994). It started in 1983 within the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP). The adopted text passed in 1993 to the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and in 1994 to the UN Commission on Human Rights, which established the Intersessional Working Group, ² which led to more than 10 years of diplomatic negotiations among member states of the UN. This long and complex process shows the relevance of the topic and the involvement of different actors, including non-state entities, representatives of indigenous peoples, individual experts and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in its development. However, it also shows that states have been reluctant to find a quick solution to protect indigenous rights, which led to the long procrastination of the adoption of the final text of the UNDRIP. This is due to different concerns of governments, which are not always unjustified, and they should be taken into due consideration also when looking at the broader implications, including political and philosophical ones, that certain legal claims may bring with them when it comes to their actual implementation.