You are on page 1of 3

SUBJECT OF RESOLUTION: Indigenous Peoples Sovereignty within Sovereign Nations SUBMITTED TO: THE SOCIAL, HUMANITARIAN, AND CULTURAL

COMMITTEE SUBMITTED BY: THE FRENCH REPUBLIC/ CANADA/ THE GRAND DUCHY OF LUXEMBOURG THE SOCIAL, HUMANITARIAN, AND CULTURAL COMMITTEE, UNDERSTANDING that all nations apart of the United Nations have individual sovereignty, and the United Nations must not violate or impede on a states sovereignty; FURTHER UNDERSTANDING that indigenous groups must have some type of power, dictated by national governments, to continue to practice humane indigenous practices that do not interfere with the liberties of other citizens, FULLY BELIEVING that indigenous groups should not have absolute sovereignty and autonomy over those who fall into said indigenous group, REALIZING that fostering good government and strong accountability in indigenous communities helps to increase investor confidence, support economic partnerships, and improve living conditions, KEEPING IN MIND the successful self-governing indigenous groups in Canada and the successful policies that the Canadian government uses to establish self-governing programs, WISHING for member states to allow indigenous groups to self-govern, but EMPHASIZING that nations would still have direct control over indigenous groups, losing no sovereignty, USING the Canadian policy for creating self-governmental indigenous groups, 1. RECOMMENDS for all United Nation members to establish, if such a body is not already in place, a council of an individual nations federal government, called the Council on Indigenous Self-Governments (CISG), to deal with the issues of indigenous self-governing. This new branch would be made up of nine appointed officials who have expertise in indigenous law, both international and local. This new section of a nations federal government would have the following responsibilities: a. Working with indigenous groups who seek to self-govern by self-government agreements, which is a document that dictates the powers and relationship to the federal government of the indigenous group in question. The creation of a selfgovernment agreement would have the following steps: a. Claim Submission

b.

c.

d. e.

i. A nations CISG branch would determine if indigenous land claims are proper and reasonable, determining this by certain evidential factors including but not limited to the following: 1. Evidence that the indigenous group is and was an organized society, 2. Proof that the indigenous group has occupied a specific territory many years before European colonization, 3. Evidence that the indigenous group has current uses of the occupied land for traditional purposes, ii. Claims should be made by indigenous groups who wish to self-govern. A lawyer may be used to help the indigenous group make a case, but a lawyer is by no means required, Acceptance of Claim by CISG i. Claim acceptances would require a simple majority of votes (in the case of the CISG, five out of nine votes) by the CISG council, ii. Assessing a claim for acceptance demands that the experts of CISG thoroughly analysis the case presented by the indigenous group in question. All of the information submitted by the group should be reviewed, iii. If CISG deems the case inadequate and rejects it, the court should send a letter to the indigenous group in question and explain why their claim failed, Framework Agreements i. A beginning round of negotiations will begin, determining the subject matter of all further negotiations. 1. Subject matter will vary in each claim because every indigenous group is different. Examples of subject matter include Aboriginal citizenship, structures of government generally, education, language, culture, health, social services, child welfare, taxation, administration of justice, policing, wills and estates, housing, roads and traffic, economic development, and municipal services. ii. The framework agreements will serve as an agenda for all negotiations, giving a list of subject matter that must be addressed before moving to the next stage, Agreement in Principle Final agreement and ratification

2. UNDERSTANDS that traditional territories can and do overlap because of many causes including but not limited to: indigenous groups never having used traditional border systems, a history of sharing territory for the use of specific resources, movements of families/tribes, or disputes between/among tribes;

3. PROCLAIMS that overlapping cases should be treated with the utter most seriousness by employees of a CISG branch. The CISG should follow a strict plan of action that contains the following steps: 3. DICTATES that the costs of self-governments would be decided by the federal officials who make up the newly created CISG and the indigenous group in question at the Framework Agreements stage. Ways of paying for these newly self-governmental indigenous groups could include a mixture of federal and territorial governments, including some cost to the selfgoverning indigenous people; 4. FUTHER PROCLAIMS that in matters of national interest and where impacts extend beyond communities, State laws would prevail over conflicting indigenous laws; 5. EXPLAINS that national governments would have to ensure that the rights of both the indigenous and non-indigenous people are not prejudiced by self-government; 6. EMPHASIZES that these new self-governing indigenous groups would not be above the national government; they would, however, be held accountable to their citizens. The only powers that these self-governmental indigenous groups could have will be stated in the selfgovernment agreement, which would be worked on by both the indigenous group and a nations federal employees.

You might also like