UN Permanent Forum Documents 13th Session

As many will know the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues held its 13th Session in New York at the UN Headquarters considering an extensive agenda over a ten day period from the 12th of May. The Center for World Indigenous Studies submitted the Joint Statement of Constitutional and Customary Indigenous Governments with eleven endorsing indigenous governments. The statement was submitted under the Permanent Forum’s Agenda Item 3: Principles of good governance consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Articles 3 to 6 and 46.  The CWIS statement called for implementation of Article 4 of the Declaration and made several recommendations. One recommendation emphasizes formally establishing government-to-government relations between each indigenous government and the state government to formalize a permanent intergovernmental framework to conduct dialogue and negotiations to implement appropriate provisions of the UN Declaration. The endorsing governments from Qom (Argentina), San Francisco Xochicuatla (Mexico), Igbo (Nigeria), Rohingya (Burma), and Mohegan, Pequot, Lenape confederacy, Quinault and Yamasi (United States of America) essentially argue to foster good governance by Fourth World nations, states governments must act honorably to engage these nations’ governments through mutually agreed intergovernmental mechanisms that reflect respect, mutual interests, and honorable relations.

You may want to see the CWIS Joint Statement of Constitutional and Customary Indigenous Governments (Here) along with other statements issued at the UN Permanent Forum.

The UN General Assembly President hosted an informal consultation with states, indigenous government representatives and NGOs on 3 June to discuss different recommendations for topics and themes for the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples  (WCIP) (September 22-23, 2014). Short afterward the General Assembly President’s office announced that two Informal Interactive Sessions (18 July and 19 August) will be conducted for further discussion of WCIP procedures and modalities. Watch this space.