The Permanent Forum appoints Irma Pineda Santiago and Símon Freddy Condo Riveros, members of the Forum, to conduct a study on collective intellectual property and the appropriation of the ideas and creations of indigenous peoples, and to present that study to the Forum at its twenty-first session.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing of the Convention on Biological Diversity recognize the rights of indigenous peoples over the biological and genetic resources of their own territories.
The Permanent Forum is concerned that, in their efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, Member States are not complying with the Declaration. In one case, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination requested that Norway temporarily suspend the ongoing construction of the Fosen Vind onshore wind power project, which negatively affects the reindeer herding of the South Sami people. The Government of Norway, having concluded that its administrative and legal processes were sufficient, did not implement the interim measures. The Forum urges Member States to respect and comply with decisions made by the United Nations treaty bodies.
Mauna Kea, the sacred mountain for native Hawaiians, is currently targeted for the placement of an international observatory featuring a 30-metre telescope. Such an activity inhibits and is contrary to the rights articulated in articles 11 and 12 of the United Nations Declaration. In addition, the Permanent Forum strongly recommends that the free, prior and informed consent of native Hawaiians be recognized.
Member States must urgently address violence against indigenous peoples, including State violence, gender-based violence, forced assimilation and forced child removals, discrimination in the justice system and other forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on gender, religion, disability, age and LGBTIQ identity. The Forum encourages the Expert Mechanism, at its earliest convenience, to engage with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, and with the participation of indigenous peoples, regarding the removal of indigenous children.
The Permanent Forum calls upon United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, other multilateral financial institutions and bilateral donors to establish clear policy commitments to protect the ancestral lands of indigenous peoples.
Celebrating 22 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is the first legally binding international instrument affirming human rights for all children, the Permanent Forum welcomes the adoption of the third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure, enabling individual claims and the use of the examination process, and urges States to accede to this important instrument regarding children in the most vulnerable situations, many of whom are indigenous, to allow them access to recourse and redress.
The Forum urges States and the United Nations agencies to support the attendance and participation of indigenous youth at future sessions of the Permanent Forum
In the context of the United Nations system-wide coherence, in particular gender equality architecture reform, the Permanent Forum recommends that States and the United Nations system ensure the inclusion of the priorities and demands of indigenous women.
The Forum recommends that ILO, with the participation of interested parties, including indigenous peoples' organizations (the United Nations system, the International Finance Corporation, the European Bank for Rural Development) conduct a workshop on capacity-building for the sustainable development of indigenous communities to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals and targets are implemented in a timely and appropriate manner for indigenous peoples
There generally appears to be positive recognition of the approach to Goal 1 suggested by the Permanent Forum, while there has been less attention paid to Goal 2. In both areas, there appears to be an increase in the number of projects being implemented in Latin America, with limited projects in Asia, and one or two projects in Africa. This is particularly the case under Goal 2, where there is a general lack of reporting from Asia or Africa on intercultural/bilingual education projects or programmes in this area.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the study to examine challenges in the African region to protecting traditional knowledge, genetic resources and folklore prepared by Paul Kanyinke Sena (E/C.19/2014/2), acknowledges the support provided by the WIPO secretariat towards the completion of that study and, in this regard, calls upon the WIPO secretariat to extend its outreach and awareness-raising activities in respect of indigenous peoples, with a particular focus on African indigenous peoples so as to increase their awareness of WIPO processes, and to further develop culturally appropriate training and capacity-building materials for indigenous peoples consistent with article 41 of the Declaration.