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Addressee: OHCHR
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The Permanent Forum recommends that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) promote the elaboration of a report on the impacts of climate change and indigenous peoples by the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people.
Responses
OHCHR reports: In its report on its seventh session, the Forum recommended that OHCHR promote the elaboration of a report on the impact of climate change and indigenous peoples by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people.5 The Special Rapporteur indicated that in the light of the creation of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, whose mandate is primarily research-based and study-oriented, he would not engage on a regular basis in thematic studies on his own, but rather provide input into the thematic work on issues of general concern to indigenous peoples and give priority to the examination of specific situations in which indigenous peoples’ human rights are threatened and being violated. On 28 March 2008, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 7/23 on human rights and climate change, by which it expressed concern that climate change poses an immediate and far-reaching threat to people and communities around the world and has implications for the full enjoyment of human rights and mandated OHCHR to conduct an analytical study of the relationship between climate change and human rights. At its seventh session,members of the Forum as well as observers were informed of the study and invited to make written contributions to it. The consultation process organized by the Office in the preparation of the study offered the opportunity for indigenous organizations to submit contributions to the Office, which hosted an open-ended consultation on the relationship between climate change and human rights on 22 October 2008 in Geneva. Andrea Carmen, Executive Director of the International Indian Treaty Council, was invited as a panellist to discuss the impact of climate change on thehuman rights of indigenous peoples. The report of the Office on the relationship between climate change and human rights6 discusses specific rights which relate directly to climate change-related threats, in particular the rights to life, food, water, health and housing. It stresses that important aspects of the right to selfdetermination include the right of a people not to be deprived of its own means of subsistence and underlines the specific situation of indigenous peoples. The report will be considered by the Human Rights Council at its tenth session, to be held in March 2009.
Final Report of UNPFII Session 7 (2008)
Area of Work
