Deals with the controversy in defining indigenous people and indogeneity. Discusses standard-setting activities in international law and ethno-nationalist interpretations in Asia, including 15 country profiles focusing on terms used, government positions, and recognized indigenous nationalities. Makes reference to the LO Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, 1957 (No. 107) and the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169).

Contains 18 articles dealing with, inter alia, the definition of "indigenous peoples", the question of ethnic identity, historical priority, self determination, the ownership and control of land and resources, ecological exploitation, the colonial heritage, and relations with the State.

The Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law aims to publish peer-reviewed scholarly articles and reviews as well as significant developments in human rights and humanitarian law. It examines international human rights and humanitarian law with a global reach, though its particular focus is on the Asian region. The focused theme of Volume 4 is India and Human Rights.

This book demonstrates how active and meaningful collaboration between researchers and local stakeholders and indigenous communities can lead to the co-production of knowledge and the empowerment of communities. Focusing on the Asia Pacific region, this interdisciplinary volume looks at local and indigenous relations to the landscape, showing how applied scholarship and collaborative research can work to empower indigenous and descendant communities. With cases ranging across Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, Cambodia, Pohnpei, Guam, and Easter Island, this book demonstrates the many ways in which co-production of knowledge is reconnecting local and indigenous relations to the landscape, and diversifying the philosophy of human-land relations. In so doing, the book is enriching the knowledge of landscape, and changing the landscape of knowledge. This important contribution to our understanding of knowledge production will be of interest to readers across Anthropology, Archaeology, Development, Geography, Heritage Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Policy Studies.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 September 2007. Since then, the importance of the role that indigenous peoples play in economic, social and environmental conservation through traditional sustainable agricultural practices has been gradually recognized. Consistent with the mandate to eradicate hunger, poverty and malnutrition--and based on the due respect for universal human rights--in August 2010 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations adopted a policy on indigenous and tribal peoples in order to ensure the relevance of its efforts to respect, include, and promote indigenous people's related issues in its general work. This publication is an outcome of a regional consultation held in Bangkok, Thailand in November 2013. It documents seven case studies which were conducted in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Nepal and Thailand to take stock of the changes in livelihood and food security among indigenous shifting cultivation communities in South and Southeast Asia against the backdrop of the rapid socio-economic transformations currently engulfing the region. The case studies identify external--macro-economic, political, legal, policy--and internal--demographic, social, cultural--factors that hinder and facilitate achieving and sustaining livelihood and food security. The case studies also document good practices in adaptive changes among shifting cultivation communities with respect to livelihood and food security, land tenure and natural resource management, and identify intervention measures supporting and promoting good practices in adaptive changes among shifting cultivators in the region.

For years, traditional laws – or customary laws – in Asia have been eroded. This report argues that remaining customary laws should be retained and discusses the extent to which their erosion can be reversed. Traditional Customary Laws and Indigenous Peoples in Asia focuses primarily on two types of customary law systems – personal or family law, and land and resource rights law – and considers the complex situation, which is far from uniform throughout Asia. For example, in some areas customary law systems and procedures are generally respected, while in other parts of Asia, customary law has been so eroded that it is virtually nonexistent and unrecognized by governments. There are also many examples that fall between these two situations. The author discusses the many challenges facing indigenous peoples in the pursuit of their customary law rights and many of the issues that have yet to be resolved within customary law systems. These include the occasional conflict between women’s rights and customary rights. The report focuses on the situation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, as well as including numerous examples from the Cordilleras in the Philippines; Jharkhand, Mizoram and Nagaland in India; northern Thailand; and Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysia, among others. Traditional Customary Laws and Indigenous Peoples in Asia is essential reading for indigenous peoples, nonindigenous government and political leaders and officials, staff of donor and development institutions and NGOs, and international bodies such as the United Nations.

For indigenous peoples in Asia, as in many parts of the world, forests have traditionally represented their ancestral lands and their livelihoods. Yet in recent years, the region has lost more than half of its forests. Forests and Indigenous Peoples of Asia shows how forest-dwellers' survival is increasingly threatened due to economic and cultural impoverishment, human rights abuses, land loss and a rapid integration into the global marketplace. While the Report takes a broad · approach to these themes throughout Asia, it focuses on five states: Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand. It describes how logging, mining and hydropower schemes are displacing more and more indigenous peoples, with settlers and commercial plantations occupying their lands. The authors demonstrate that in the face of such opposition, indigenous peoples have been far from passive. Forests and Indigenous Peoples of Asia discusses indigenous peoples' growing mobilization against this environmental destruction, the loss of their lands and their livelihoods. The Report also analyses recent changes in governmental policy towards indigenous peoples and forest-dwellers, along with an accessible overview of relevant international agreements on these issues. The Report concludes with a set of recommendations which are aimed at safeguarding and promoting indigenous peoples' rights in the region.