The Permanent Forum welcomes the participation at its sixth session of indigenous parliamentarians from, inter alia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Greenland, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Norway, Peru, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and encourages indigenous parliamentarians to continue participating at future sessions in their own capacity, with designated seating arrangements.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case of Saramaka People vs. Suriname (28 November 2007), which aptly applies the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Permanent Forum urges the Working Group of the Organization of American States, which is elaborating the draft American declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, to consider the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the minimum standard.
The Permanent Forum expresses appreciation to Mr. Parshuram Tamang and Mr. Yuri Boichenko for their draft questionnaire for United Nations agencies and requests the secretariat of the Permanent Forum to use the questionnaire in seeking information from agencies for its future sessions. The Permanent Forum also supports requests from States that they receive a similar questionnaire and requests the secretariat to carry through this request, in consultation with members of the Permanent Forum.