The Durban Review Conference welcomed the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which should be used to combat racism against indigenous peoples. The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues decides to have a half-day session on the theme of “Addressing the elimination of racism against indigenous peoples”. This session will be held during the 2011 meeting of the Permanent Forum.
The Forum calls upon all those Members States which have not yet done so to consider without delay ratifying the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and International Labour Organization Convention No. 169
The Permanent Forum requests the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, with the support of the secretariat of the Forum, to expand and strengthen the United Nations response to reprisals and threats faced by indigenous human rights and environmental defenders by enhancing high-level engagement on reprisals, ensuring appropriate action on urgent cases when reprisals occur.
The Permanent Forum requests that UNICEF operationalize and implement its strategic framework on indigenous and minority children and report to the Forum in 2012 on measures undertaken to that end.
The Forum urges the United Nations funds, agencies and programmes and multilateral cooperation entities, including UNIFEM, to adopt policies and strengthen existing funds for financing and supporting indigenous women’s participation, strengthening their own participation and social development options in all initiatives that promote their cultural identities.
The Permanent Forum acknowledges the continuing negotiations between the Nordic States and the Sami peoples towards the adoption of a Nordic Sami convention. The Forum recommends that the minimum international human rights standards contained in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples be the framework for all negotiations concerning the convention and the harmonizing of Sami rights within Nordic countries. It urges Nordic States to recognize and respect the Sami peoples’ right to self-determination, to determine their own identity or membership of their institutions in accordance with their customs and their right not to be subjected to forced assimilation, consistent with articles 8 and 33 of the Declaration, the conclusions and recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (see CERD/C/FIN/CO/19, para. 13).
The Permanent Forum decides to reappoint Victoria Tauli-Corpuz as Special Rapporteur to complete a study on the impacts of the global crisis on indigenous peoples by 31 December 2010 and submit it to the Permanent Forum at its tenth session, in 2011.
Should members of the Forum wish to submit working papers to the Forum under the various areas of its mandate, they are hereby formally recommended to do so.
The Permanent Forum reaffirms the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the normative framework for the high-level plenary meeting of the sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly, to be known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. The provisions of Assembly resolution 66/296 regarding the organization of the World Conference must be given the widest and most generous interpretation possible in order to achieve the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum notes the progress made in including indigenous peoples in several of the newly developed United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks developed in 2020 and the COVID-19 socioeconomic response plans. However, the Forum also notes the uneven inclusion of indigenous peoples in United Nations country programming consultations and development, and the lack of disaggregated data, which perpetuates their invisibility. The Forum reiterates that indigenous peoples should participate in the preparation of common country assessments as well as the Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks and that United Nations country teams should work with Governments to foster effective consultation with indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum requests the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues and, specifically, those agencies working on land tenure and changes in land use, to step up cooperation in order to operationalize indicators on land tenure and changes in land use pertaining to the traditional territories (lands and waters) of indigenous peoples, as a global multipurpose indicator in order to report on status and trends, in line with the Convention on Biological Diversity, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. All relevant funds, programmes and specialized agencies should update the Forum every year on the results of this work.
The Permanent Forum notes that the Constitutional Court of Guatemala issued ruling No. 2112-2016 of 24 October 2017 on indigenous peoples’ intellectual collective property. The Permanent Forum urges Guatemala to comply with the ruling and to adopt laws and policies, respecting the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples.