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Addressee: Iraq
Paragraph Number: 34
Session: 24 (2025)
Full Text:
Iraq should secure self-identified Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their lands, territories, cultures and self-governance, guaranteeing free, prior and informed consent and respecting their right to self-identification.
Area of Work: Lands and Resources, Culture, Autonomy and Self-determination, Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
Addressee: International community
Paragraph Number: 138
Session: 23 (2024)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum calls for increased investments in educational programmes and capacity-building initiatives that empower Indigenous Peoples to navigate legal and bureaucratic processes in managing their resources in keeping with their cultural and spiritual values and self-determined development. These initiatives should support the transmission of Indigenous knowledge and skills across generations, enhancing resilience and sustainability.
Area of Work: Capacity Building, Autonomy and Self-determination, Traditional Knowledge
Addressee: Australia
Paragraph Number: 18
Session: 23 (2024)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum regrets the outcome and impact of the “Indigenous Voice” referendum on Indigenous Peoples, in particular Indigenous youth, held in Australia in 2023, which undermines their journey towards the full realization of the right to self-determination for Indigenous Peoples. The Forum urges the Government of Australia to implement the Declaration.
Area of Work: Autonomy and Self-determination
Addressee: PAHO; WHO; Member States
Paragraph Number: 29
Session: 24 (2025)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum commends the World Health Organization (WHO), including its regional offices, for advancing the recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ traditional medicine and midwifery. However, some regional offices, particularly the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), utilize the concept of interculturality, which predates the Declaration, to conflate rights holders with stakeholders in the implementation of initiatives, undermining Indigenous Peoples’ autonomy and self determination and compliance with the principle of free, prior and informed consent. The Forum calls upon PAHO and any regional offices using this approach to halt this conflation and to address Indigenous issues separately from those of stakeholders. WHO, PAHO and Member States should also recognize Indigenous midwifery as an autonomous ancestral practice and a critical Indigenous determinant of health, decriminalize Indigenous-recognized traditional midwifery, finance Indigenous-led maternal care, integrate Indigenous-recognized midwifery into national health policies, and fully respect Indigenous Peoples’ distinct rights.
Area of Work: Health, Autonomy and Self-determination
Paragraph Number: 132
Session: 23 (2024)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum urges Member States and financial institutions to enhance direct financial support for Indigenous Peoples-led projects with funding mechanisms that are equitable, non-discriminatory, accessible, flexible and responsive to Indigenous Peoples’ self-determined priorities across all seven sociocultural regions, without political impediments that could obstruct fair resource allocation. Such support should empower Indigenous Peoples to manage their environmental resources and engage in sustainable economic activities without reliance on intermediaries.
Area of Work: Funding and Resources, Autonomy and Self-determination
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 11
Session: 23 (2024)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum emphasizes the essential role of Indigenous Peoples’ languages and cultural practices in self-determination and urges Member States to adopt stronger measures to protect them from erosion and loss. The Forum decries the ongoing destruction of cultural heritage sites and the loss of Indigenous Peoples’ languages, urging immediate protective measures through robust legal and policy frameworks aligned with the Declaration.
Area of Work: Autonomy and Self-determination, Indigenous Languages
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 14
Session: 24 (2025)
Full Text:
Member States are encouraged to reaffirm their commitment to prevent the use of Indigenous Peoples’ resources, lands and territories without free, prior and informed consent and respect the territorial integrity of Indigenous Peoples. The population of Greenland is over 90 per cent Indigenous; hence, the Declaration applies fully, along with national and international law. Member States are called to honour the territorial integrity and political autonomy of Greenland.
Area of Work: Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), Lands and Resources, Autonomy and Self-determination
Paragraph Number: 103
Session: 23 (2024)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum recommends that Member States in the region enhance the protection of Indigenous Peoples through recognition and autonomy, in line with the Declaration, by revising legal and policy frameworks. Governments should rectify the injustices of the colonial past, taking into consideration Indigenous Peoples and their perspectives, in particular those of Indigenous youth, ensuring the participation of Indigenous Peoples in decision-making.
Area of Work: Autonomy and Self-determination, Human Rights, Participation
Addressee: ECOSOC, UNGA
Paragraph Number: 60
Session: 18 (2019)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly ensure the meaningful participation of indigenous peoples and the Forum at the meetings of the 2019 high-level political forum on sustainable development, to be convened under the auspices of the Council and the Assembly in July and September 2019, respectively. The Forum stresses that the contributions of indigenous peoples to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda should be adequately reflected in the outcome document of the high-level political forums convened under the auspices of the Council and of the Assembly.
Area of Work: 2030 Agenda, HLPF
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 10
Session: 23 (2024)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum reiterates its recommendation that Member States review and revise their constitutions and legal frameworks to comprehensively recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including the right to self-determination. Such review and revision processes should be driven and guided by Indigenous Peoples. The Forum also recommends that Member States develop and adopt specific national action plans to ensure that all policies and laws conform with the recognition and advancement of the right to self-determination, including self-governance and autonomy. The Forum further recommends that States engage in processes focused on decolonization and reconciliation policies that facilitate the path of Indigenous Peoples to self-determination, with the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples.
Area of Work: Autonomy and Self-determination
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 8
Session: 24 (2025)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum urges all Member States that have not formally recognized Indigenous Peoples within their territories to do so, in law and practice, under the term “Indigenous Peoples”. Recognition must go beyond symbolic acknowledgement and encompass concrete measures to uphold their individual and collective rights in accordance with the Declaration.
Area of Work: UNDRIP, Autonomy and Self-determination
Addressee: African States
Paragraph Number: 74
Session: 23 (2024)
Full Text:
The lack of recognition of Indigenous Peoples violates their right to self-determination. Their legal recognition should be aligned with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the report of the Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations/Communities of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.1 The Permanent Forum invites African Governments to join groups of friends of Indigenous Peoples.
Area of Work: Human Rights, Autonomy and Self-determination
