The Permanent Forum welcomes the study entitled “Free, prior and informed consent: a human rights-based approach” (A/HRC/39/62), prepared by the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It encourages Member States, United Nations entities, including the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank, regional development banks, the private sector, civil society organizations and other stakeholders, to use the study as guidance for understanding the principle of free, prior and informed consent when working on issues of concern to indigenous peoples. The Forum also encourages indigenous peoples to use the study to guide the development of their own community protocols on free, prior and informed consent for engaging with these stakeholders.
The Permanent Forum notes the second World Conference of Indigenous Women, which will be organized in 2020 by the International Indigenous Women’s Forum, in cooperation with regional indigenous women’s networks and hosted by the Saìmi Nisson Forum. The global agenda for promoting the rights of indigenous women in the context of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and of the International Conference on Population and Development will be discussed at the World Conference. The Forum encourages Member States and United Nations entities to support the organization of the World Conference of Indigenous Women and the participation of indigenous women from all seven sociocultural regions.
The Permanent Forum recommends that WIPO commission the updating of the technical review of key intellectual property-related issues of the WIPO draft instruments on genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, which was undertaken in 2016 by James Anaya (WIPO/GRTKF/IC/29/INF/10), to reflect current issues, with an emphasis on concepts such as “balancing” and “public domain” and how these might conflict with indigenous peoples’ human rights and customary laws, and the obligation to incorporate and respect human rights in the work of WIPO.