CWIS Study: Realizing the UNDRIP

The United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) did
not include in its narrative a method or
methods for implementing principles and
mandates adopted by the UN General
Assembly save an indirect mention in
paragraph 42. States’ governments, Fourth
World governments, the World Conference
on Indigenous Peoples, the Global
Indigenous Preparatory Conference at Alta,
Norway in 2013, and UN agencies have
offered four main proposals to implement
the Declaration. This study examines the
potential advantages and disadvantages as
well as benefits and harms to states’ and
nations’ interests should one of these
proposals be considered as viable, and
discusses the probability of UN Member
States and Fourth World nations adopting
one of the proposals. The study
systematically identifies and weighs the
interests of states and nations and
compares the achievement of those interests
against eleven remedies derived from an
assessment of state and nation interests
that may come from each of the four
proposals. The study reveals a significant
probability that states and nations will more
likely embrace the status quo (essentially
doing nothing) as a first option and
adoption of the Fourth World nations’ state-
nation specific proposed Protocol as a
second likely option. The study
demonstrates that it is least likely that
states’ and nations’ governments will
seriously adopt the UN proposed use of the
Expert Mechanism on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples as a monitoring
mechanism or the UN Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues’ considered optional
protocol to establish a monitoring and
claims mechanism. If the latter two are
indeed established, the study suggests
these will be least effective in terms of
achieving a balance between the interests of
states and nations due to “rights ritualism.”