United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Instructions: Compare and contrast the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) . Was UNDRIP necessary? In your answer refer to problems facing contemporary indigenous Australians.
Solution.
United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
The UN Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) is a document that dictates the rights that human beings are inherently entitled to. This Declaration was signed after the Second World War, which had threatened many human lives. It consists of thirty articles which dictate the economic social and cultural rights of human beings in different parts of the world. The UN Declaration of Human Rights is a covenant that dictates equal and fair treatment of all humans in various countries (United Nations, 2007). The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) on the other hand, is a document signed in 2007 as a stepping stone of protecting the rights of the indigenous people. This document states that the protection of the fights of indigenous people and their cultural practices is vital to the protection of human rights. This document was signed to ensure that human rights violations against the 370 million indigenous people have been eradicated, and they are free from marginalization. This document sought to protect these indigenous people their political, socio-economic, contemporary and cultural rights violations. Some countries opted out of this agreement arguing that the UNDHR was enough to cover to the rights of these indigenous people. A comparison of the two documents will help us understand the rationale of having two documents instead of one holistic document.
To understand both documents we need to examine the conditions that motivated their signing. The UNDHR was a document signed in 1948 after the Second World War. The motivation behind the signing of this document was the crimes against humanity seen in the Second World War. The document stated the basic rights every human is entitled to ensure that no human faced the deprivation of those basic rights again. After many years of the existence of the UNDHR, there was a mutual feeling that the rights of many indigenous people were not catered for. It was, therefore, necessary to create a law that protected the rights of these indigenous people. The historical, contemporary, cultural and economic aspirations of these communities needed to be protected by various countries (Joffe, Hartley, Preston, 2010). An examination of the lives of the indigenous communities reflects the importance of having two documents.
The indigenous people have special needs that are not similar to the rest of the people. This is because the very existence of the indigenous people depends on their ability to defend their culture and exist in their indigenous systems of governance. Blending their indigenous cultural and civic systems is a hard task and requires a set of laws that gives them privileges that enable them to maintain their social and cultural practices. The Australian indigenous communities, for instance, have faced years of discrimination as they were treated like the rest of the people. Some of their challenges included Land ownership, Remoteness, social attitudes, health, and education. Some of the ancestral lands have been developed in other ways, reclaiming such land and rebuilding their cultural systems proved a difficult task. Some of these communities live in the remote areas of the country because it provides an opportunity for them to develop their cultural practices. The remoteness of their locations limits their access to health and education services (Healey, 2007). The retention rate of Indigenous learners in schools was very low owing to the fact that modern education needed to be improvised to suit the needs of these communities. These challenges proved the necessity of having a document that guarantees these communities their special rights.
Unfortunately,
Australia was one of the nations that opted out of the UNDRIP quoting that one
universal law should govern the country in the modern world. This hard stand
has threatened the extinction of some of these indigenous communities and
threatens to rob the world a great deal of cultural variety.
References
Healey, J. (2007). Indigenous Australians and the law. Thirroul, N.S.W: Spinney Press.
Joffe, P., Hartley, J., & Preston, J. (2010). Realizing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Triumph, hope, and action. Saskatoon: Purich Pub.
United Nations. (2007). Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 60th anniversary special edition, 1948-2008. New York: United Nations Dept. of Public Information.
