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Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 45
Session: 22 (2023)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum recognizes development of renewable energy sources but remains alarmed that irresponsible development related to green technology and the green transition, has led, at times, to violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including mineral extraction and the building of hydroelectric dams and other large-scale infrastructure without the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples. The Permanent Forum recommends that Member States provide the resources necessary to develop and implement Indigenous Peoples’ own free, prior and informed consent protocols in such contexts.
Area of Work: Environment, Economic and Social Development, Climate Change, Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
Addressee: Member States and UN System
Paragraph Number: 49
Session: 13 (2014)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum recommends that Member States and United Nations agencies recognize indigenous peoples as distinct stakeholders and make a specific separate reference to indigenous peoples, and not simply include them under the terms “marginalized and vulnerable groups”, in both the sustainable development goals and the post-2015 development agenda, including the Small Island Developing States process, and that this recommendation, with the specific recognition of indigenous peoples’ views and priorities for development, should be reflected in the goals and targets to be developed, including appropriate indicators and data disaggregation.
Area of Work: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Methods of Work
Addressee: Member States; UN entities; WHO
Paragraph Number: 35
Session: 22 (2023)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum welcomes the study on Indigenous determinants of health in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (E/C.19/2023/5), presented at its twenty-second session. The Permanent Forum calls upon Member States and United Nations entities, particularly WHO, to adopt indigeneity as an overarching determinant of health, including in relation to the relevant Sustainable Development Goals and in policies and practices across the United Nations system.
Area of Work: Health, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Addressee: UN Human Rights Council
Paragraph Number: 22
Session: 21 (2022)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum recalls that, to ensure effective implementation, the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights must be aligned with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169), of ILO, the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Escazú Agreement, and the jurisprudence of the human rights treaty bodies. Furthermore, the Permanent Forum recognizes the work of the Human Rights Council to develop an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises. In that respect, the Permanent Forum stresses the need to ensure that the new instrument affirms indigenous peoples’ rights, including with regard to free, prior and informed consent. The Permanent Forum recommends that this instrument explicitly define due diligence processes and their specific methods of implementation. Therefore, the Permanent Forum underlines the importance of full and effective participation by indigenous peoples throughout the development of the instrument.
Area of Work: Human rights, Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
Addressee: UNESCO; Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage
Paragraph Number: 92
Session: 22 (2023)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum calls upon UNESCO, including its Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, to step up its policies, safeguards and actions on the protection of Indigenous Peoples’ tangible and intangible cultural heritage. UNESCO safeguards that reflect robust free, prior and informed consent protocols, as prescribed by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, could contribute to the prevention of the destruction and desecration of Indigenous Peoples’ lands and sites by public and private enterprises. Examples include mining activities of the company Rio Tinto on the ancient Aboriginal site Juukan Gorge in Western Australia and the sacred Oak Flat of the San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona, United States of America.
Area of Work: Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), Culture
Addressee: UNESCO
Paragraph Number: 41
Session: 21 (2022)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum calls upon UNESCO, in its coordination of the International Decade, to give attention to the role of indigenous languages in the preservation of traditional food and knowledge systems that are important to climate change adaptation strategies.
Area of Work: Indigenous Languages, Climate Change
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 101
Session: 20 (2021)
Full Text:
During the pandemic, indigenous peoples have been seriously affected by a lack of access to energy, health-care establishments, education centres, infrastructure that supplies clean water, and communication services and information technologies. Governments have made a range of efforts to support economic activity in their responses to the economic impacts of the pandemic. The relaxation of environmental and human rights standards in order to support activities that will promote economic growth, such as logging, mining, large-scale agriculture and various infrastructure and energy projects, threaten indigenous peoples’ territories. The Permanent Forum requests Member States to include indigenous peoples in the preparatory process and the outcome of the high-level dialogue on energy to be held by the General Assembly in September 2021, in order to accelerate action on achieving Goal 7 and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement.
Area of Work: Methods of Work, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 93
Session: 16 (2017)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum recommends that relevant countries among the 44 countries undergoing voluntary national reviews at the high-level political forum in 2017 include indigenous peoples in their reviews, reports and delegations. The Forum invites those Member States to report on good practices of including indigenous peoples’ indicators in the voluntary national reviews to the Forum at its seventeenth session.
Area of Work: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Economic and Social Development
Addressee: UN System
Paragraph Number: 70
Session: 16 (2017)
Full Text:
In accordance with the outcome document of the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples and the system-wide action plan, all funds, programmes and specialized agencies are urged to adopt policies to inform their work with indigenous peoples that include indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and free, prior and informed consent. Progress achieved will be discussed at future sessions of the Permanent Forum.
Area of Work: Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
Addressee: UN entities
Paragraph Number: 98
Session: 21 (2022)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum calls on United Nations entities to elevate the discussion on indigenous peoples to the highest possible governance level of their entities in order to ensure system-wide ownership and support for indigenous peoples’ rights. It encourages the focal points of United Nations entities to facilitate the commencement of dialogues between the Permanent Forum and the heads of the entities. The objective of such dialogues could include reviews of the entities’ internal policies and safeguards guaranteeing the right to self-determination of indigenous peoples, respect for their free, prior and informed consent and due diligence in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other relevant international standards by the end of 2022
Area of Work: Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 104
Session: 18 (2019)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum is concerned that, in their efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, Member States are not complying with the Declaration. In one case, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination requested that Norway temporarily suspend the ongoing construction of the Fosen Vind onshore wind power project, which negatively affects the reindeer herding of the South Sami people. The Government of Norway, having concluded that its administrative and legal processes were sufficient, did not implement the interim measures. The Forum urges Member States to respect and comply with decisions made by the United Nations treaty bodies.
Area of Work: Human rights, 2030 Agenda
Addressee: IFC
Paragraph Number: 32
Session: 13 (2014)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum recommends that the International Finance Corporation establish a mechanism of engagement with indigenous peoples in the context of its sustainability framework, including Performance Standard 7, on indigenous peoples.
Area of Work: Environment, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
