The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples set key standards for the treatment of indigenous people, and has significantly developed how indigenous rights are viewed and enforced. This commentary thematically assesses all aspects of the Declaration's provisions, providing an overview of its impact.--

Adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 September 2007, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms the “minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world.” The Declaration responds to past and ongoing injustices suffered by Indigenous peoples worldwide, and provides a strong foundation for the full recognition of the inherent rights of Indigenous peoples. Despite this, Canada was one of the few countries to oppose the Declaration. With essays from Indigenous leaders, legal scholars and practitioners, state representatives, and representatives from NGOs, contributors discuss the creation of the Declaration and how it can be used to advance human rights internationally.

The development and adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was a huge success for the global indigenous movement. This book offers an insightful and nuanced contemporary evaluation of the progress and challenges that indigenous peoples have faced in securing the implementation of this new instrument, as well as its normative impact, at both the national and international levels. The chapters in this collection offer a multi-disciplinary analysis of the UNDRIP as it enters the second decade since its adoption by the UN General Assembly in 2007. Following centuries of resistance by Indigenous peoples to state, and state sponsored, dispossession, violence, cultural appropriation, murder, neglect and derision, the UNDRIP is an achievement with deep implications in international law, policy and politics. In many ways, it also represents just the beginning – the opening of new ways forward that include advocacy, activism, and the careful and hard-fought crafting of new relationships between Indigenous peoples and states and their dominant populations and interests. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of Human Rights.

"The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a culmination of a centuries-long struggle by indigenous peoples for justice. It is an important new addition to UN human rights instruments in that it promotes equality for the world's indigenous peoples and recognizes their collective rights."--Back cover.

Today human rights represent a primary concern of the international legal system. The international community’s commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights, however, does not always produce the results hoped for by the advocates of a more justice-oriented system of international law. Indeed international law is often criticised for, inter alia, its enduring imperial character, incapacity to minimize inequalities and failure to take human suffering seriously. Against this background, the central question that this book aims to answer is whether the adoption of the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples points to the existence of an international law that promises to provide valid responses to the demands for justice of disempowered and vulnerable groups. At one level, the book assesses whether international law has responded fairly and adequately to the human rights claims of indigenous peoples. At another level, it explores the relationship between this response and some distinctive features of the indigenous peoples’ struggle for justice, reflecting on the extent to which the latter have influenced and shaped the former. The book draws important conclusions as to the reasons behind international law’s positive recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights, shedding some light on the potential and limits of international law as an instrument of justice. The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of public international law, human rights and social movements.

"This book is published in connection with the UN "World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance" held in South Africa, 2001 and it contains articles by experts from throughout the world." - cover.