Indigenous Peoples: Issues of Definition

International Journal of Cultural Property

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 4-13

  Sanders, Douglas E ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0006550082     PISSN: 09407391     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0940739199770591     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. Benedict Kingsbury, Self-Determination and “Indigenous Peoples,” American Society of International Law, Proceedings of the 86th Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., April 1–4, 1992, 383-394.
2. The ILO published a book, Indigenous Peoples: Living and Working Conditions of Aboriginal Populations in Independent Countries (Geneva 1953), that commented on the definitional problems. Noting different levels of “integration, absorption, and assimilation,” it commented at page 5 that it was “increasingly difficult to find a reliable and generally applicable test to distinguish between the aborigines and the rest of the population.” This was written in the context of work that promoted assimilation.
3. Art. 1 (b).
4. See Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, 4 Canadian Native Law Reporter 49 (1989)
5. 15 Oklahoma City University Law Review 237 (1990).
6. See Douglas Sanders, The Formation of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (IWGIA 1977). Indigenous people from the United States were involved in lobbying at the United Nations in the 1970s. James Durham was a leading figure, representing the International Indian Treaty Council. He is interviewed in the film Indian Summer in Geneva, which dealt with the first sessions of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations.
7. See, e.g., the coverage in The Indigenous World, 1994–95, (International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, Copenhagen 1995).
8. The International Work Group organized a conference on the question of indigenous peoples in Africa in June 1993
9. see D. Murumbi, The Concept of Indigenous Peoples in Africa, (1994) Indigenous Affairs, IWGIA, 52–56
10. Christian Erni, Vines That Won't Bind: Indigenous Peoples in Asia, IWGIA, 1996, document No. 80.
11. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7/Add.4 para. 379–81. The working definition is quoted in Ian Brownlie, Treaties and Indigenous Peoples 59 (Oxford 1992).
12. See Robert Anderson and Walter Huber, The Hour of the Fox: Tropical Forests, the World Bank, and Indigenous People in Central India (Washington 1988).
13. World Bank Policy on Indigenous Peoples; Approach Paper for Revision of OD 4.20, Oct. 9, 1998, para. 6.
14. The concern was articulated, for example, in the Report of the Workshop on a Permanent Forum for Indigenous People, E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.4/1995/7 at para. 10, 13.
15. Note by the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, Erica-Irene Daes, on criteria that might be applied when considering the concept of indigenous peoples, E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.4/1995/3.
16. See, e.g., Nancy Seufert Barr, Seeking a New Partnership, 40 UN Chronicle, June 1993. A map produced for the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 indicated indigenous peoples in China and India. After protest, the map was withdrawn. Daes, the chairwoman of the working group, visited the Ainu areas in Japan in 1991 at the invitation of an Ainu organization and with the cooperation of the Japanese government. This may be the furthest that the government of Japan has gone to formally recognize the Ainu as an indigenous people.
17. Douglas Sanders, Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations, in Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, The Legitimacy of the United Nations: Towards an Enhanced Legal Status for Non-State Actors, Studie-en Informatiecentrum Mensenrechten, SIM Special No. 19, 1997, 93- 111.
18. Miguel Alfonso Martinez, Study on Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arrangements Between States and Indigenous Populations, 1998, unedited version, para. 90.
19. Id., para. 78.
20. Id., para. 72.
21. Id., para. 73. He criticizes the “working definition” in the Martínez Cobo report as lumping together different situations: para. 77, 84.
22. Id., para. 79 and 80.
23. Id., para. 88. Tibetans, Palestinians, and Kurds are three groups that have not come to the Working Group on Indigenous Populations. They may have seen their goals of independence or autonomy as beyond what could be raised in the working group. Numerous groups have come to the working group meetings from Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Thailand, and from states in Africa.
24. 92 American Journal of International Law 414.