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 Forum welcomes the participation and perspective of indigenous women and girls with disabilities, recognizes the distinct vulnerability and marginalization that such indigenous individuals encounter as members of an indigenous group, and encourages United Nations agencies, and Governments and organizations, to include their views.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States take effective measures to halt land alienation in indigenous territories, for example, through a moratorium on the sale and registration of land, including the granting of land and other concessions in areas occupied by indigenous peoples, and also to assist indigenous communities, where appropriate, to register as legal entities.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the recent entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Forum encourages Member States to accede to the Optional Protocol and requests the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to consider the preparation of a general comment on the economic, social and cultural rights of indigenous peoples.
Recalling the recommendations made by the Special Rapporteur appointed to undertake a study on the status of implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord of 1997 (E/C.19/2011/6, sect. VIII), and given that the situation of the indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts remains a matter of concern, the Forum encourages the Government of Bangladesh to allocate sufficient human and financial resources and set a time frame for the full implementation of the Accord.
Consistent with article 10 of the United Nations Declaration, the Permanent Forum calls upon Member States and human rights institutions to consider examining, in conjunction with the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and other mandate holders, the forced relocation of indigenous communities.
The Permanent Forum urges Member States, in their regular reporting to the United Nations human rights treaty bodies and, in particular, to the Human Rights Council through the universal periodic review, to include the actions taken to implement the recommendations made by the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
The Permanent Forum thanks the Government of Colombia for its support during the Forum mission to Colombia and requests that the Government, the United Nations country team and the United Nations agencies involved in the mission implement the recommendations contained in the mission report (E/C.19/2011/3) through consultation and full collaboration with the indigenous peoples concerned. The Permanent Forum intends to assess the implementation of the recommendations at its eleventh session.
The Permanent Forum reaffirms and reiterates that self-determination, free, prior and informed consent and accountability form the basis of, and prerequisite for, any relationship that can be called a true partnership for development, and urges all States, indigenous peoples, United Nations bodies, international development agencies, corporations and the private sector, as well as civil society, to uphold these vital principles.
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 all States to commit to a process, with the participation of indigenous peoples, responding to the country reports of all United Nations special rapporteurs, including:
(a) Providing a written response to the rapporteur’s report, submitted to the Human Rights Council, within six months of the report’s issuance. The response should outline the State process for implementing the recommendations of the report;
(b) Developing and publicly promoting a strategy to implement the recommendations of the report within 12 months of its issuance;
(c) Providing annual updates of the rapporteur’s report detailing the implementation of the strategy until such time as the rapporteur conducts a new visit to the State in question, or until that State undergoes a universal periodic review.