The General Assembly, Taking note of the recommendation of the Human Rights Council contained in its resolution 1/2 of 29 June 2006, by which the Council adopted the text of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Recalling its resolution 61/178 of 20 December 2006, by which it decided to defer consideration of and action on the Declaration to allow time for further consultations thereon, and also decided to conclude its consideration before the end of the sixty-first session of the General Assembly, Adopts the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as contained in the annex to the present resolution.
Annex
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples
The General Assembly,
Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the
United Nations, and good faith in the fulfilment of the
obligations assumed by States in accordance with the
Charter,
Affirming that indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples,
while recognizing the right of all peoples to be different, to
consider themselves different, and to be respected as such,
Affirming also that all peoples contribute to the diversity and
richness of civilizations and cultures, which constitute the
common heritage of humankind,
Affirming further that all doctrines, policies and practices
based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on
the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or
cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally
invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust,
Reaffirming that indigenous peoples, in the exercise of their
rights, should be free from discrimination of any kind,
Concerned that indigenous peoples have suffered from historic
injustices as a result of, inter alia, their colonization and
dispossession of their lands, territories and resources, thus
preventing them from exercising, in particular, their right to
development in accordance with their own needs and
interests,
Recognizing the urgent need to respect and promote the inherent
rights of indigenous peoples which derive from their political,
economic and social structures and from their cultures, spiritual
traditions, histories and philosophies, especially their rights
to their lands, territories and resources,
Recognizing also the urgent need to respect and promote the
rights of indigenous peoples affirmed in treaties, agreements and
other constructive arrangements with States,
Welcoming the fact that indigenous peoples are organizing
themselves for political, economic, social and cultural
enhancement and in order to bring to an end all forms of
discrimination and oppression wherever they occur,
Convinced that control by indigenous peoples over developments
affecting them and their lands, territories and resources will
enable them to maintain and strengthen their institutions,
cultures and traditions, and to promote their development in
accordance with their aspirations and needs,
Recognizing that respect for indigenous knowledge, cultures and
traditional practices contributes to sustainable and equitable
development and proper management of the environment,
Emphasizing the contribution of the demilitarization of the lands
and territories of indigenous peoples to peace, economic and
social progress and development, understanding and friendly
relations among nations and peoples of the world,
Recognizing in particular the right of indigenous families and
communities to retain shared responsibility for the upbringing,
training, education and well-being of their children, consistent
with the rights of the child,
Considering that the rights affirmed in treaties, agreements and
other constructive arrangements between States and indigenous
peoples are, in some situations, matters of international
concern, interest, responsibility and character,
Considering also that treaties, agreements and other constructive
arrangements, and the relationship they represent, are the basis
for a strengthened partnership between indigenous peoples and
States,
Acknowledging that the Charter of the United Nations, the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as
well as the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, affirm
the fundamental importance of the right to self-determination of
all peoples, by virtue of which they freely determine their
political status and freely pursue their economic, social and
cultural development,
Bearing in mind that nothing in this Declaration may be used to
deny any peoples their right to self-determination, exercised in
conformity with international law,
Convinced that the recognition of the rights of indigenous
peoples in this Declaration will enhance harmonious and
cooperative relations between the State and indigenous peoples,
based on principles of justice, democracy, respect for human
rights, non-discrimination and good faith,
Encouraging States to comply with and effectively implement all
their obligations as they apply to indigenous peoples under
international instruments, in particular those related to human
rights, in consultation and cooperation with the peoples
concerned,
Emphasizing that the United Nations has an important and
continuing role to play in promoting and protecting the rights of
indigenous peoples,
Believing that this Declaration is a further important step
forward for the recognition, promotion and protection of the
rights and freedoms of indigenous peoples and in the development
of relevant activities of the United Nations system in this
field,
Recognizing and reaffirming that indigenous individuals are
entitled without discrimination to all human rights recognized in
international law, and that indigenous peoples possess collective
rights which are indispensable for their existence, well-being
and integral development as peoples,
Recognizing also that the situation of indigenous peoples varies
from region to region and from country to country and that the
significance of national and regional particularities and various
historical and cultural backgrounds should be taken into
consideration,
Solemnly proclaims the following United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a standard of achievement to
be pursued in a spirit of partnership and mutual respect:
Article 1
Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a
collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental
freedoms as recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human
rights law.
Article 2
Indigenous peoples and individuals are free and equal to all
other peoples and individuals and have the right to be free from
any kind of discrimination, in the exercise of their rights, in
particular that based on their indigenous origin or identity.
Article 3
Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By
virtue of that right they freely determine their political status
and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural
development.
Article 4
Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to
self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government
in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well
as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.
Article 5
Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen
their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural
institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully,
if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and
cultural life of the State.
Article 6
Every indigenous individual has the right to a nationality.
Article 7
1. Indigenous individuals have the rights to life, physical and
mental integrity, liberty and security of person.
2. Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in
freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples and shall not be
subjected to any act of genocide or any other act of violence,
including forcibly removing children of the group to another
group.
Article 8
1. Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be
subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their
culture.
2. States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of,
and redress for:
(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of
their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values
or ethnic identities;
(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them
of their lands, territories or resources;
(c) Any form of forced population transfer which has the aim or
effect of violating or undermining any of their rights;
(d) Any form of forced assimilation or integration;
(e) Any form of propaganda designed to promote or incite racial
or ethnic discrimination directed against them.
Article 9
Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right to belong to an
indigenous community or nation, in accordance with the traditions
and customs of the community or nation concerned. No
discrimination of any kind may arise from the exercise of such a
right.
Article 10
Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands
or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free,
prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned
and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where
possible, with the option of return.
Article 11
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalize
their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to
maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future
manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and
historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies
and visual and performing arts and literature.
2. States shall provide redress through effective mechanisms,
which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with
indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual,
religious and spiritual property taken without their free, prior
and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions
and customs.
Article 12
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice,
develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions,
customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have
access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the
right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the
right to the repatriation of their human remains.
2. States shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriation of
ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through
fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in
conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned.
Article 13
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop
and transmit to future generations their histories, languages,
oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures,
and to designate and retain their own names for communities,
places and persons.
2. States shall take effective measures to ensure that this
right is protected and also to ensure that indigenous peoples can
understand and be understood in political, legal and
administrative proceedings, where necessary through the provision
of interpretation or by other appropriate means.
Article 14
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control
their educational systems and institutions providing education in
their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural
methods of teaching and learning.
2. Indigenous individuals, particularly children, have the right
to all levels and forms of education of the State without
discrimination.
3. States shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take
effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals,
particularly children, including those living outside their
communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in
their own culture and provided in their own language.
Article 15
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the dignity and diversity
of their cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations which
shall be appropriately reflected in education and public
information.
2. States shall take effective measures, in consultation and
cooperation with the indigenous peoples concerned, to combat
prejudice and eliminate discrimination and to promote tolerance,
understanding and good relations among indigenous peoples and all
other segments of society.
Article 16
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish their own media
in their own languages and to have access to all forms of
non-indigenous media without discrimination.
2. States shall take effective measures to ensure that
State-owned media duly reflect indigenous cultural diversity.
States, without prejudice to ensuring full freedom of expression,
should encourage privately owned media to adequately reflect
indigenous cultural diversity.
Article 17
1. Indigenous individuals and peoples have the right to enjoy
fully all rights established under applicable international and
domestic labour law.
2. States shall in consultation and cooperation with indigenous
peoples take specific measures to protect indigenous children
from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is
likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's
education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical,
mental, spiritual, moral or social development, taking into
account their special vulnerability and the importance of
education for their empowerment.
3. Indigenous individuals have the right not to be subjected to
any discriminatory conditions of labour and, inter alia,
employment or salary.
Article 18
Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in
decision-making in matters which would affect their rights,
through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with
their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their
own indigenous decision-making institutions.
Article 19
States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the
indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative
institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed
consent before adopting and implementing legislative or
administrative measures that may affect them.
Article 20
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop
their political, economic and social systems or institutions, to
be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and
development, and to engage freely in all their traditional and
other economic activities.
2. Indigenous peoples deprived of their means of subsistence and
development are entitled to just and fair redress.
Article 21
1. Indigenous peoples have the right, without discrimination, to
the improvement of their economic and social conditions,
including, inter alia, in the areas of education, employment,
vocational training and retraining, housing, sanitation, health
and social security.
2. States shall take effective measures and, where appropriate,
special measures to ensure continuing improvement of their
economic and social conditions. Particular attention shall be
paid to the rights and special needs of indigenous elders, women,
youth, children and persons with disabilities.
Article 22
1. Particular attention shall be paid to the rights and special
needs of indigenous elders, women, youth, children and persons
with disabilities in the implementation of this
Declaration.
2. States shall take measures, in conjunction with indigenous
peoples, to ensure that indigenous women and children enjoy the
full protection and guarantees against all forms of violence and
discrimination.
Article 23
Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop
priorities and strategies for exercising their right to
development. In particular, indigenous peoples have the right to
be actively involved in developing and determining health,
housing and other economic and social programmes affecting them
and, as far as possible, to administer such programmes through
their own institutions.
Article 24
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional
medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the
conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and
minerals. Indigenous individuals also have the right to access,
without any discrimination, to all social and health
services.
2. Indigenous individuals have an equal right to the enjoyment of
the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
States shall take the necessary steps with a view to achieving
progressively the full realization of this right.
Article 25
Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen
their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally
owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters
and coastal seas and other resources and to uphold their
responsibilities to future generations in this regard.
Article 26
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories
and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or
otherwise used or acquired.
2. Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and
control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by
reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation
or use, as well as those which they have otherwise
acquired.
3. States shall give legal recognition and protection to these
lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be
conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land
tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.
Article 27
States shall establish and implement, in conjunction with
indigenous peoples concerned, a fair, independent, impartial,
open and transparent process, giving due recognition to
indigenous peoples' laws, traditions, customs and land tenure
systems, to recognize and adjudicate the rights of indigenous
peoples pertaining to their lands, territories and resources,
including those which were traditionally owned or otherwise
occupied or used. Indigenous peoples shall have the right to
participate in this process.
Article 28
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to redress, by means that
can include restitution or, when this is not possible, just, fair
and equitable compensation, for the lands, territories and
resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise
occupied or used, and which have been confiscated, taken,
occupied, used or damaged without their free, prior and informed
consent.
2. Unless otherwise freely agreed upon by the peoples concerned,
compensation shall take the form of lands, territories and
resources equal in quality, size and legal status or of monetary
compensation or other appropriate redress.
Article 29
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation and
protection of the environment and the productive capacity of
their lands or territories and resources. States shall establish
and implement assistance programmes for indigenous peoples for
such conservation and protection, without discrimination.
2. States shall take effective measures to ensure that no
storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in
the lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their
free, prior and informed consent.
3. States shall also take effective measures to ensure, as
needed, that programmes for monitoring, maintaining and restoring
the health of indigenous peoples, as developed and implemented by
the peoples affected by such materials, are duly implemented.
Article 30
1. Military activities shall not take place in the lands or
territories of indigenous peoples, unless justified by a relevant
public interest or otherwise freely agreed with or requested by
the indigenous peoples concerned.
2. States shall undertake effective consultations with the
indigenous peoples concerned, through appropriate procedures and
in particular through their representative institutions, prior to
using their lands or territories for military activities.
Article 31
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control,
protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional
knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the
manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures,
including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines,
knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions,
literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and
performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control,
protect and develop their intellectual property over such
cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional
cultural expressions.
2. In conjunction with indigenous peoples, States shall take
effective measures to recognize and protect the exercise of these
rights.
Article 32
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop
priorities and strategies for the development or use of their
lands or territories and other resources.
2. States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the
indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative
institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent
prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or
territories and other resources, particularly in connection with
the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or
other resources.
3. States shall provide effective mechanisms for just and fair
redress for any such activities, and appropriate measures shall
be taken to mitigate adverse environmental, economic, social,
cultural or spiritual impact.
Article 33
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine their own
identity or membership in accordance with their customs and
traditions. This does not impair the right of indigenous
individuals to obtain citizenship of the States in which they
live.
2. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine the structures
and to select the membership of their institutions in accordance
with their own procedures.
Article 34
Indigenous peoples have the right to promote, develop and
maintain their institutional structures and their distinctive
customs, spirituality, traditions, procedures, practices and, in
the cases where they exist, juridical systems or customs, in
accordance with international human rights standards.
Article 35
Indigenous peoples have the right to determine the
responsibilities of individuals to their communities.
Article 36
1. Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by
international borders, have the right to maintain and develop
contacts, relations and cooperation, including activities for
spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social purposes,
with their own members as well as other peoples across
borders.
2. States, in consultation and cooperation with indigenous
peoples, shall take effective measures to facilitate the exercise
and ensure the implementation of this right.
Article 37
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition,
observance and enforcement of treaties, agreements and other
constructive arrangements concluded with States or their
successors and to have States honour and respect such treaties,
agreements and other constructive arrangements.
2. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as diminishing
or eliminating the rights of indigenous peoples contained in
treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements.
Article 38
States in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples,
shall take the appropriate measures, including legislative
measures, to achieve the ends of this Declaration.
Article 39
Indigenous peoples have the right to have access to financial and
technical assistance from States and through international
cooperation, for the enjoyment of the rights contained in this
Declaration.
Article 40
Indigenous peoples have the right to access to and prompt
decision through just and fair procedures for the resolution of
conflicts and disputes with States or other parties, as well as
to effective remedies for all infringements of their individual
and collective rights. Such a decision shall give due
consideration to the customs, traditions, rules and legal systems
of the indigenous peoples concerned and international human
rights.
Article 41
The organs and specialized agencies of the United Nations system
and other intergovernmental organizations shall contribute to the
full realization of the provisions of this Declaration through
the mobilization, inter alia, of financial cooperation and
technical assistance. Ways and means of ensuring participation of
indigenous peoples on issues affecting them shall be
established.
Article 42
The United Nations, its bodies, including the Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues, and specialized agencies, including at the
country level, and States shall promote respect for and full
application of the provisions of this Declaration and follow up
the effectiveness of this Declaration.
Article 43
The rights recognized herein constitute the minimum standards for
the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of
the world.
Article 44
All the rights and freedoms recognized herein are equally
guaranteed to male and female indigenous individuals.
Article 45
Nothing in this Declaration may be construed as diminishing or
extinguishing the rights indigenous peoples have now or may
acquire in the future.
Article 46
1. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for
any State, people, group or person any right to engage in any
activity or to perform any act contrary to the Charter of the
United Nations or construed as authorizing or encouraging any
action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the
territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and
independent States.
2. In the exercise of the rights enunciated in the present
Declaration, human rights and fundamental freedoms of all shall
be respected. The exercise of the rights set forth in this
Declaration shall be subject only to such limitations as are
determined by law, and in accordance with international human
rights obligations. Any such limitations shall be
non-discriminatory and strictly necessary solely for the purpose
of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and
freedoms of others and for meeting the just and most compelling
requirements of a democratic society.
3. The provisions set forth in this Declaration shall be
interpreted in accordance with the principles of justice,
democracy, respect for human rights, equality,
non-discrimination, good governance and good faith.
Original English Version: www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf.