WORKING GROUP ON INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS TO MEET AT PALAIS DES NATIONS FROM 26 TO 30 JULY

HR/99/70
22 July 1999




The Working Group on Indigenous Populations will hold its seventeenth session from 26-30 July at the Palais des Nations. Participants will focus, among other things, on the topic of “Indigenous peoples and their relationship to land”.

The session will open at 11 a.m. on 26 July.

Established in 1982 to develop a better understanding of the situation of indigenous peoples and to consider whether there was a need to elaborate international standards for their protection, the Working Group has become one of the United Nations’ major human-rights bodies and the principal international forum for the world's indigenous people. It is a subsidiary body of the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

Over the years, the Working Group has been responsible for launching most of the United Nations' policy initiatives on indigenous issues, including studies on treaties, land and intellectual property rights, the draft declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples now being reviewed by Governments, and the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People currently under way. It also has sponsored numerous expert seminars and workshops on indigenous concerns.

An expected 1,000 participants -- mostly representatives of indigenous nations and peoples -- will attend this year’s session and will inform the United Nations about their situation.

In addressing the topic of indigenous peoples and their relationship to land, it is certain that indigenous delegates will stress their strong attachment to mother earth, the continuing story of dispossession and despoliation of their traditional territories, and their demand for legal recognition of their collective ownership over their homelands. Governments are expected to report on recent legislation to strengthen indigenous rights over their lands, such as a measure establishing the province of Nunavut in Canada where the Inuit have political control over a land area the size of France.

As usual, there will be many parallel meetings, briefings and film screenings taking place during the luncheon periods, including a recent film on Nunavut, a workshop on indigenous peoples and the private sector, briefings by the European Union, International Labour Office and World Bank, and meetings on tourism and the situation of the world's nomadic peoples.

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous People will be celebrated on Friday, 30 July, the last day of the session. Although the official date for the International Day is 9 August, it was decided by the High Commissioner for Human Rights that the commemoration should occur during the annual session of the Working Group. The ceremony will be held from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. in the Ariana Park of the Palais des Nations, in front of the Armillary Sphere. In addition to cultural presentations by indigenous groups from Latin America, North America, Africa, the Arctic, Russia, Oceania, and Asia, there will be statements by Vladimir Petrovsky, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva; Erica-Irene A. Daes, Chairperson/Rapporteur of the Working Group; and by the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bertie Ramcharan.

Further information on the activities of this year’s Working Group may be obtained from Julian Burger, the group’s Secretary, in Room XVIII or by telephone at extensions 77156 or 77158.