Summary: Working Group on Right of Peoples to Self-determination 

Wrap-up Session

This is a session summary. The executive summary for this working group is available here.

Time:		18 July 2002, 16:00-17:30
Location:		ICCG 15
Moderator(s):		• Mr. Joshua Cooper, Hawaii Institute for Human Rights (HIHR)
Presenters/ Participants:		• Ms. Mililani Trask, Na Koa Ikaika O Ka Lahui Hawaii (NHLI) • Mr. Gunter Wippel, Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) • Ms. Maria Peñalosa, World Women's Summit Foundation (WWSF)
Reporter:		Stephen J. Doggett (ICVolunteers)
Language:		English, French, Spanish
Key words:		Synthesis, Conclusion, RSD, IPGD, action, just, recommendations

The final joint session of the Working Groups on the Rights of Peoples to Self-determination (RSD) and Indigenous Peoples, Gender and Development (IPGD) revealed that both groups had been following very similar paths and had come to many of the same conclusions concerning indigenous peoples and civil society.

The two working groups were brought together at the last minute in order to allow Ms. Mililani Trask (Na Koa Ikaika O Ka Lahui Hawaii), a member of both groups, to address them together. In addition, one member of each group made a presentation.

Few new points were raised in the speeches, but a clear summary of the main issues raised over the course of the sessions was presented. 

Ms. Trask began by attempting to put the role of the working groups in some context. Echoing thoughts that would later dominate the discussion, Ms. Trask said that the working groups would have achieved nothing if all that was compiled were lists of hundreds of recommendations. The working groups had to produce a real document that reiterated the universality of human rights.
It was the role of working group members and of all civil societies to call upon the UN to pass the Draft Declaration on Human Rights in the exact form approved by the 1993 UN working group, she said. Similarly all double standards, specifically qualifications on the application of the word 'peoples' had to be removed.

Again indicating that working group discussions were meaningless unless they resulted in changes, Ms. Trask warned members not to fall into the trap of having a non-specific dialogue about rights. We cannot talk about rights outside of the context of their application, she said. We must not simply argue about language and terms without taking action. Mr. Gunter Wippel of the Society for Threatened Peoples and member of the RSD Working Group spoke against a capitalist, globalized world that assumed that indigenous people needed western culture. He said that it was time for the world to respect and listen to indigenous people. He reminded participants that the right to self-determination would always be inherent and non-negotiable. In Mr.Wippel's opinion, intercultural dialogue needed to begin. Taking as his examples the many case studies that had been presented to the RSD Working Group, he demonstrated how vital these topics were to such a diverse range of peoples and indeed to all peoples everywhere.

From the IPGD Working Group Ms. Maria Penalarosa described how the conclusions of her working group 'boiled down' to the rights of self-determination. The application of the rights of self-determination were not only lacking in state policies towards indigenous peoples but often towards women as well. Quoting Ms. Trask, she declared that, "development cannot arise without self-determination".

Referring to indigenous peoples, Ms. Penalarosa said that it was the responsibility of the developed world to give indigenous peoples the access and the education to use the international laws that were thrust upon them. As Cree chief Mr. Littlechild had said to the RSD working group in the prior session, Ms. Penalarosa called for international law to be written in the language of the international community so that it was reflective of all cultures.

Chair Joshua Cooper, of the Hawaii Institute for Human Rights and in charge of producing the RSD Working Group's final document, expressed his view of the present situation and how it should be changed by quoting from previous speaker Mr. van Walt of Kreddha. Mr. van Walt said that when referring to a rights of self-determination claim, "there is no they, only peoples". Mr. Cooper expressed enthusiasm for the idea, suggested in the previous RSD session, of a website that could be used by all peoples seeking self-determination.

Interesting questions
Most of the discussions were calls for people to take all these issues to heart and to actively try to implement and shift the perspective of civil society. The general opinion seemed to be that too often there is talk at conferences but no action. As with the idea of the website, there was discussion about how greater co-ordination between peoples seeking self-determination could be implemented. Two Bolivian women from the IPGD group spoke about how knowledge of mechanisms, of conferences and human rights law was practically non-existent in much of Bolivia. They asked how they could set about co-ordinating the distribution of this information to every town in Bolivia.

Conclusions
Both working groups shared a similar outlook at the end of the session. In the same way that the right to self-determination is a right to choice, covering many possibilities, so the processes and changes of attitude that are required to end abuse of it are necessary across many issues. It is surely no coincidence that these two working groups, coming together for the first time, had so many identical conclusions.

Current mechanisms may have the potential to be consistently just, but many people and peoples have suffered because the process has either not been applied equally or not applied at all. The UN Draft Declaration on Human Rights is seen as a necessary instrument in the struggle to banish double standards at state level, but it is also the duty of civil society to rid itself of double standards first.

The IPGD Working Group covered a wide range of topics from the education of indigenous children and respect of traditional knowledge through to health and land. The Working Group called on industrialized countries to change their consumption patterns because it impeded the rights of indigenous peoples to live in their chosen manner.

The RSD Working Group had taken a linear approach to the issue of the rights of self-determination. It had first understood rights of peoples in a universal legal context and in the light of past failures, before hearing case studies by speakers from six continents, examining present mechanisms and then deciding what civil society itself could do.

The two Working Groups concluded that governments and multinationals can only be expected to act justly and in accordance with universal human rights legislation if civil society demands and demonstrates it first.

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