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Advisory committee formed to aid ICC

Intended to offer guidance to indigenous groups on U.N. negotiations

JANE GEORGE

The Inuit Circumpolar Conference’s head office in Greenland hopes to foster closer relations with other indigenous peoples through a new advisory committee on indigenous issues.

"For Inuit, it’s important to show solidarity with the rest of the indigenous peoples," Lynge said.

More co-operation may also help meet common goals at the United Nations — at least, that’s what Lynge hopes.

The new five- to eight-member committee is intended to offer guidance to the ICC and other indigenous peoples who are trying to negotiate the U.N.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

At the same time, ICC plans to establish its own internal advisory group on all U.N.-related issues regarding indigenous peoples.

Lynge said indigenous peoples need to be particularly well prepared for negotiations at the U.N.

"U.N.-related work is a question of hard work and persistence," Lynge said.

For the past 20 years, ICC has been pushing for the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – the first step toward achieving sort of international protection for indigenous peoples.

"A declaration is non-binding," explained Hjalmar Dahl, co-ordinator of U.N. issues at ICC, in an interview from Nuuk. "But among the U.N.’s 187 members, there isn’t a legal instrument dealing with the rights of indigenous peoples. So, it can be a tool."

But for the past seven years, a draft of this declaration has been bogged down in a so-called "open-ended working group" under the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

Indigenous peoples have the right to attend this working group’s meetings and to express their opinions, but the 53 governments represented at the working group still have the final say on whether to approve any article in the declaration.

Indigenous peoples need well-thought-out proposals to win the support of nations such as the U.S. and Japan that have been opposed to concepts at the heart of this declaration.

These include the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination and the precedence of collective over individual rights. There’s even been debate over whether indigenous peoples are actual peoples or merely "persons belonging to indigenous groups."

The working group is supposed to approve each article of the declaration’s text by consensus. However, so far, consensus has been interpreted as unanimity: something that has been almost impossible to achieve on many important issues.

Lynge said the working group is still "as far away as the moon" from coming up with a draft declaration everyone can agree to.

He said some non-governmental organizations representing indigenous peoples haven’t been very organized, often because they aren’t well funded or savvy in the ways of global politics.

That’s why ICC suggested an advisory committee to provide independent, unbiased and professional advice.

This new committee will also work closely with the newly established U.N. Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples that will meet for the first time this May in New York City.

The forum won’t be able to interfere in the internal affairs of U.N. member states, but it will consider indigenous opinions on issues touching human rights or environmental and social issues and also hear grievances.

At the forum, ICC and the Sami Council are jointly representing the indigenous peoples of the Arctic/Europe region. Ole Henrik Magga, a Sami from Norway, will represent the two groups until 2005. Then, the plan is for Lynge, ICC’s nominee, to take over from Magga.

With an estimated 300 million indigenous people worldwide, Lynge said ICC, which represents more than 150,000 Inuit in Russia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland, must make sure its voice is heard.

"During my term as ICC president, it’s been very important for me that we have a high profile with indigenous people around the globe," Lynge said.

ICC’s future involvement in U.N.-related issues will also be on the agenda at the ICC annual general meeting this August in Kuujjuaq.

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