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.
The Permanent Forum encourages ILO to promote the ratification of the Convention concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, 1989 (No. 169) (Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention).
The Permanent Forum recommends that Paraguay should propose the negotiation of international agreements for protection of the rights of indigenous peoples with the other States of the Chaco region — the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil — and particularly with the Plurinational State of Bolivia with a view to the latter’s development of additional policies aimed at the freeing of individuals, the recovery of land and the rebuilding of peoples.
The Permanent Forum urges other States to provide similar support and urges regional commissions to strengthen their focus on urban indigenous peoples and issues, in particular regarding the implementation of the recommendations contained in the 2006 publication.
The Permanent Forum reiterates that the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline jeopardizes the Great Lakes and poses a real and credible threat to the human rights of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and the United States. The Forum reiterates its call for Canada and the United States to decommission Line 5.
The Permanent Forum recommends that Governments respect the free participation of indigenous representatives in United Nations meetings and activities relevant to them, including the Permanent Forum and other bodies.
The Forum recommends that UN-Habitat jointly, with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, through the United Nations Housing Rights Programme, organize an expert group meeting in 2006 to review the status of the realization process of indigenous peoples’ housing rights globally, and identify and document best practices and report on the outcome and recommendations of the expert group meeting at the sixth session of the Forum.
Recalling the study on decolonization of the Pacific region (see E/C.19/2013/12), the Permanent Forum invites the relevant States to provide information on the status of the situation of the indigenous peoples concerned to the Permanent Forum at its sixteenth session.
The Forum urges the meeting of chairpersons of the human rights treaty bodies and the meeting of the special rapporteurs and other mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights organized by the Office of the High Commissioner to place indigenous peoples, including indigenous women, on their agenda and invite the Forum to participate.
The Permanent Forum urges States and State-owned corporations to consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before the approval of any policies, plans and projects affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of minerals, water and other resources, in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Permanent Forum urges States to include indigenous peoples in decision-making processes in all areas of water management, including commercial use, irrigation and environmental management, and to ensure that such decision-making processes are consistent with the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in particular its article 32, under which the free and informed consent of indigenous peoples is required prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources.
Since the adoption in 2007 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, few States have entered into effective dialogue or partnerships with indigenous peoples or have undertaken adequate legal reforms to implement the Declaration. Based on interventions and reports of representatives of indigenous peoples from all regions of the world at its eleventh session, the Permanent Forum is alarmed about the ongoing gross human rights violations being perpetrated against indigenous peoples and therefore calls upon all States to take urgent action to end such violations and to recognize and respect the human rights standards contained in the Declaration.