Businesses, in their human rights due diligence processes, should meaningfully engage with indigenous peoples as rights holders in business decisions and outcomes affecting them. In that regard, free, prior and informed consent should be understood as their right to give or withhold consent.
The Forum calls on all relevant United Nations system and other intergovernmental entities to pay special attention to the human rights and concerns of indigenous peoples, in particular indigenous women, when designing, implementing and evaluating their policies and programmes, and to promote the meaningful participation of indigenous women. In particular, the relation of indigenous women’s issues to the design, implementation and evaluation of programmes, in the context of the 10-year review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action on Human Rights and the United Nations Millennium Declaration, needs to be addressed.
The Permanent Forum recommends that all States apply the principles of general comment No. 11 (2009) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, entitled “Indigenous children and their rights under the Convention”.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants pay special attention to the vulnerability of urban and migrant indigenous persons.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Plurinational State of Bolivia should continue to link its policies for the freeing of individuals and the recovery of lands in the Chaco region with a view to the territorial reconstitution of the Guaraní people, which both the Government and APG consider the ultimate objective.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the work of the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues regarding the implementation of the call to action on the theme “Building an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future with Indigenous peoples”, in an effort to revitalize the system-wide action plan on the rights of indigenous peoples. In particular, the Permanent Forum also notes the work being carried out with and by resident coordinators to raise awareness among United Nations country teams. It encourages the Inter-Agency Support Group to continue its work on strengthening the implementation of indigenous peoples’ rights frameworks at the national level and on guaranteeing the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples at the country level.
The Forum recommends that all States install gender-sensitive action plans and independent self-reporting mechanisms that give particular attention to indigenous peoples, with the aim of protecting victims, prosecuting perpetrators and preventing human trafficking and related serious exploitation in all its forms, in accordance with the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, both supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Forum decides to devote special attention to the follow-up to global United Nations conferences, and in that regard requests its secretariat to prepare a technical background paper.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the relevant treaty bodies take into account the Declaration and urges States to include information regarding its implementation in their reports to the universal periodic review of the Human Rights Council.
The Permanent Forum recommends that human rights treaty bodies begin to undertake dialogue and cooperation with indigenous peoples’ organizations with a view to discussing the preparation of general comments relevant to indigenous peoples, and that those bodies be encouraged to formulate recommendations and general comments within their competence on the rights of indigenous peoples.
In reference to the study by Mr. John and Ms. Dorough on how States exploit weak procedural rules in international organizations to devalue the United Nations Declaration and other international human rights law, the Permanent Forum recommends that all funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations system and other intergovernmental forums begin to reform their respective procedural rules, with the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples, with the aim of ensuring compliance and consistency with the human rights affirmed in the Declaration.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the President of the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth session convene a two-day interactive thematic event immediately prior to the World Conference, with the participation of Member States and representatives of indigenous peoples, the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, to allocate more time for an interactive dialogue and build commitment from Member States, the United Nations system and other stakeholders, and the Permanent Forum.