17th session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

08 – 12 July 2024  AT Palais des Nations, Room XIX. LOCATION: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Thank you Madam Chair,

We thank the EMRIP for organizing this panel.

We thank the first delegates who have struggled for many years to open spaces for participation within the League of Nations and the United Nations. We thank Elder Levi Deskaheh of the Haudenosaunee and the various delegations from 1977 at the NGO Conference in Geneva and onwards.

We honor the work of our Elders since the last century. We appreciate the efforts of the General Assembly and the OHCHR for the workshop on IP participation in November 2022. We note with great enthusiasm that there is increasing participation in EMRIP, especially from Indigenous youth. We warmly appreciate the work of the Voluntary Fund and the various fellowships in this regard.

In relation to the OHCHR report 53/44 on the workshop on enhancing the participation of PIs in the work of the Human Rights Council, we would like to note that:

– Despite the commendable efforts and invaluable advances in participation, we have observed some setbacks, particularly in the EMRIP and the Permanent Forum. While we recognize that the participation time has been reduced from 5 minutes to 3 minutes in the hope of allowing more space for all participants, it is not sufficient to allow the participation of all the indigenous delegates who have prepared written statements from which their communities expect a report back. In the past, several Indigenous delegates have come all the way to Geneva or New York but were not able to deliver their statements.

Therefore, we would like to reiterate the proposal contained in the OHCHR report 53/44 on enhancing IPs’ participation, in section B on modalities of participation and kindly request EMRIP to recommend the Human Rights Council to “include contributions from Indigenous Peoples’ representatives and institutions in their written statements” while participating in all venues of the Council concerning IPs’ issues even when they are not delivered orally.

We would also like to recommend to the Human Rights Council “to include spaces where indigenous experts can work from their/our native languages in the translation of Indigenous concepts that do not exist in the official UN languages. The translation of Indigenous concepts has proven to be a means to ensure meaningful participation of Indigenous Peoples in relation to the spiritual relationship with the Earth and it is in full alignment with the International Decade on Indigenous Languages.

Thank you very much.