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Tribal leaders from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and other Minnesota Indian Affairs Council representatives met with Indian Law Resource Center lawyers August 4, 2016, for a high-level workshop about how to engage in the United Nations system to protect tribal lands, sovereignty, and cultures. “Indian nations have historically been international actors and a part of the world community...

The UN Human Rights Council held its 33rd session on September 13-September 30 in Geneva, Switzerland. Center staff attending called for concrete measures to address the extreme rates of violence against indigenous women and girls around the world, including American Indian and Alaska Native women. On September 20th, during its annual half-day discussion on indigenous peoples’ rights, the Council held...

The implementing and monitoring body for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples would encourage compliance with the obligations expressed in the Declaration. The body would have a mandate to receive relevant information, to share best practices, to issue reports, to make recommendations, and to otherwise work toward the objectives of the Declaration. An Implementing and monitoring body...

Create a permanent and regular status for indigenous peoples’ governing institutions within the United Nations system. Such a status would ensure indigenous governments are able to participate, at the very minimum, in all meetings of relevant UN bodies in a manner comparable to that exercised by non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council. Whether the General...

The Commission on the Status of Women, when it addresses “empowerment of indigenous women” as a focus area at its sixty-first session in 2017, should ensure that both the selection of panelists for the discussion and the preparation of issue papers by the Secretariat are done in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples, including indigenous women’s organizations and women. The...

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) affirmed claims that the land rights of seven communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, were being violated by a Bank-funded wind power project. The Indian Law Resource Center filed a complaint on behalf of the communities in December, 2012, because the IDB failed to secure the indigenous communities’ full participation in the design of the project. “The...

Sept. 20, 2016(GENEVA, SWITZERLAND) — Representatives from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, today to inform the Council about the human rights issues associated with the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Tribe's reservation. The Indian Law Resource Center is working alongside David Archambault II, Standing...

The Indian Law Resource Center is working to include indigenous peoples’ collective rights and the human rights obligations of public sector financial institutions in a new treaty to govern transnational corporations and other business entities. Center staff, Chris Foley, delivered a statement to the UN Working Group on Oct. 24, 2016, in Geneva. The future international legally binding instrument is...