The year was 1986. The United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations settled into its fifth year of operation meeting in Geneva; and its Chairman announced that it would draft a declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. It was supposed at the time that just as the UN had created the climate for the... more →
In the movie Dead Man, the wandering, poetic Native American (Gary Farmer) encountered by William Blake (Johnny Depp) responds to Blake’s question ‘Who are you?’ by answering, “I am nobody.” Removed from his indigenous culture and schooled in English literature, Nobody roams 19th century Western America through a maze of traumatized tribes and individuals negotiating... more →
Independent of American military forces, tribes in Iraq have organized to defeat foreign invaders in their lands. Tribal leaders in Iraq’s Anbar Province agreed in September 2006 to raise a tribal force of 30,000 fighters to take on foreign fighters that had moved to take over their territories with an eye to establishing an independent... more →
There has been intense public health debate in many parts of the world. The focus is to determine the most appropriate official policy towards traditional medicines. Some countries have policies that discourage traditional medicines, while others have supportive policies. The majority of countries do not have official policies and have simply left traditional medicines to... more →
When a state or nation decides to act in its own interest without consideration of prevailing international law it is “excepting” itself from that law. When a minor state acts in this way (North Korea, Libya, Iran or Syria, for example) it is said to be a rogue state. Such a state is singled out... more →
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