The Permanent Forum recommends that the Human Rights Council consider the development of a framework for the implementation of article 37 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as adopted by the Human Rights Council, to assess implementation of treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements between States and indigenous peoples in all regions of the world.
The Permanent Forum recommends that Governments, bilateral and multilateral donor and development agencies and other development partners responsible for or assisting in the implementation of sectoral strategies or other programmes affecting lands owned, occupied or otherwise used by indigenous peoples review the consistency of such strategies and programmes with internationally recognized standards for the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples and the impact of such strategies and programmes on indigenous communities and report to the Permanent Forum at its seventh session in 2008 on the results of these reviews and on any strategies adopted to address the challenges they might identify.
The Permanent Forum recognizes that it is important that the Human Rights Council continues to effectively address indigenous peoples’ issues as human rights issues. The Permanent Forum decides to appoint Ms. Ida Nicolaisen and Mr. Wilton Littlechild to undertake a study on the structures, procedures and mechanisms that presently exist and that might be established to effectively address the human rights situation of indigenous peoples, to arrange for indigenous representation and inclusion in such structures, procedures and mechanisms and to submit a report on the subject to the Permanent Forum by 31 December 2007.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants pay special attention to the vulnerability of urban and migrant indigenous persons.
The Permanent Forum recommends that relevant States recognize indigenous peoples’ right to prior, free and informed consent and provide support mechanisms for involuntarily displaced indigenous peoples to be able to return to their original communities, including appropriate forms of repatriation, compensation and restitution and provision for the sustainable livelihoods of those peoples.
The Permanent Forum urges States that have not yet done so to ratify the Convention of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
The Permanent Forum requests that the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people undertake a study on the rights of urban indigenous peoples and migration, paying particular attention to their ability to exercise and enjoy their economic and social rights, and that the study be considered at the eighth session of the Permanent Forum. The themes that could be considered in the study include cultural identity, equitable access to essential services, the challenges facing indigenous youth and border issues.
The Permanent Forum denounces the extrajudicial killings of indigenous leaders and activists in several Asian States, as reported by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples and the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and urges the concerned countries to investigate these reported cases and to provide redress to the relatives of the victims.
The Permanent Forum calls upon the member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to recognize the collective rights of indigenous peoples, and calls on ASEAN to ensure that the rights of indigenous peoples are integrated into the development process of the ASEAN charter.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the decision of the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues to hold, on an exceptional basis, a meeting to consider appropriate ways of promoting, disseminating and implementing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, once it is adopted by the General Assembly.
The Permanent Forum recommends that national human rights institutions and commissions address indigenous peoples’ issues and include indigenous experts as members of such bodies.
The Permanent Forum recommends that Asian States:(a)Adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as adopted by the Human Rights Council on 29 June 2006, before the end of the sixty-first session of the General Assembly;(b)Recognize indigenous peoples constitutionally and legally as peoples, promote legal reform, in particular with regard to the recognition of indigenous peoples’ collective land rights and their customary laws and institutions, which promote diversity and pluralism;(c)Adopt laws regulating the activities of investors and mitigating the negative impact of economic liberalization on the territories of indigenous peoples;(d) Have national laws in conformity with relevant international norms and standards;(e)Establish land commissions or mechanisms that address violations of indigenous peoples’ land rights, facilitate the restitution of alienated land and settle disputes;(f) Establish full transparency regarding projects on indigenous territories by States and corporations, through the implementation of the principles of free, prior and informed consent, in accordance with customary laws and practices of the respective indigenous peoples;(g) Abandon transmigration policies and programmes and prevent illegal migration to indigenous territories.