Steven Newcomb: US already limits indigenous rights declaration

In September 2014 a United Nations High Level Plenary Meeting of the U.N. General Assembly is scheduled to meet at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The High Level meeting, that is falsely being labeled a World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, will focus on nations and peoples which the U.N. system typically calls “indigenous.” By the end of the High Level Plenary meeting, the state governments are scheduled to produce an entirely state-constructed outcome document about how they will implement the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Within the structure of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, there are seven caucus regions of the world for Peoples termed “indigenous.” On March 1-2, the North American Indigenous Peoples Caucus met and reached a consensus position to call for a cancellation of the U.N. HLPM “to be known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples.”

On March 10 the U.S. Department of State held a “scoping session” with a number of other Indian people, most of whom did not attend the North American Indigenous Peoples Caucus gathering in the Secwépemc Nation Territory in Kamloops, British Columbia. Most of the “scoping session” crowd expressed strong support for the convening of the U.N. HLPM and requested U.S. government support for “tribal nations” to gain a “dignified” status somewhere within the U.N. system so that they can take their “issues and concerns” to the United Nations.