UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples): Human, Civil,

and Indigenous Rights

Author(s): Duane Champagne
Source: Wicazo Sa Review, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring 2013), pp. 9-22
Published by: University of Minnesota Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/wicazosareview.28.1.0009
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Presidential Address, Thirteenth Annual Conference of the
American Indian Studies Association, February 2012

UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration

on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)
Human, Civil, and Indigenous Rights
Duane Champagne

I s UNDRIP an instrument of indigenous empowerment or a new and

sophisticated form of assimilation? UNDRIP is the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Declaration was
in the making for over thirty years. The process was long and deliber-
ate, passing through many channels and committees within the UN.
Many arguments by indigenous peoples and nongovernmental organi-
zations were set against arguments from nation-­state governments. In
the end, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Declaration
with an unexpectedly high margin of support on September 13, 2007.
At the time there was talk among United Nations diplomats that if
the Declaration was not passed in 2007, the Declaration or its work-
R E V I E W

ing draft would be tabled indefinitely.1 The Declaration passed not

because all issues were resolved; rather, it passed over the objections
S A

of four nation-­states and the nonvoting and absentee votes of other

nation-­states.
S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

Many indigenous international leaders welcomed the positive

vote, but pointed out that the Declaration was just the basis for further 9
discussion. Many tribal groups from around the world attended inter-
national conventions and meetings starting in the 1970s, looking for
international help for recognizing and addressing indigenous issues.
Indigenous nations sought greater political, economic, and cultural au-
tonomy from nation-­state control, and did not believe they were getting
acceptable cooperation and protection within most nation-­states.

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 It is not my purpose to recount the story of the development of
the UNDRIP or the international indigenous peoples’ movement that
played a central role in its continuing development. Many of the per-
sons who played central roles in the making of the Declaration, pri-
marily from the UN side, have contributed to a book that recounts the
process. I recommend all who are interested in the Declaration to read
Making the Declaration Work: The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples.2 While the points of view of many of the indigenous
activists are not represented, many of the major positions that led to
the final form of UNDRIP are presented and rationales and support
are given for many still-­contested positions. In this address, I want
to comment on the differences between individual and collective
human rights, civil rights, and their relation to indigenous rights. In
many critical ways, the Declaration adopts human rights, civil rights,
and collective human rights positions and seeks to implement them.
However, significant indigenous rights positions are not adopted within
UNDRIP, and are transported into the language and law of human
rights and civil rights within the framework and management of indi-
vidual nation-­states.
Before going further, let me thank the activists, diplomats, and
nation-­state governments for going as far as they did with develop-
ing the Declaration. The document provides an internationally sup-
ported statement of indigenous issues and presents a possible solution.
The Declaration does not have the force of law, but it does establish
a moral high ground. Each nation-­state has the moral obligation to at
least uphold the standards of the UNDRIP. Although many indige-
nous leaders believe the Declaration is a basic starting point for ad-
dressing indigenous issues, a good number of nation-­states, including
the United States, believe that many of the points in the Declaration
are too difficult to achieve and consider the document only as an as-
pirational vision. Nevertheless, the UN with the support of much of
the international civil society has produced a document that articulates
R E V I E W

many indigenous issues and sets standards for conduct by nation-­states

in relations with indigenous nations. The document is a significant
codification of collective human rights, and gives indigenous nations
S A

a platform for national and international legal and political negotia-

S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

tion. The Declaration and the process that led to its adoption by the
UN Assembly was a significant achievement, and sets new standards
10 from which indigenous nations can seek their cultural, political, and
economic goals going forward. In many ways, the Declaration provides
a degree of international acknowledgement of the existence of indige-
neity and the issues confronting indigenous peoples.
After passage of the UNDRIP, diplomats and activists sought
to create ways to implement the Declaration in the laws, culture, and
legislation of nation-­states. In the end, the Declaration relies on each

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nation-­state to implement laws, policies, and political norms through its
political and legal institutions. By embedding the standards of UNDRIP
into nation-­state laws and legal cases, the protections of UNDRIP will
be extended to indigenous peoples. The international and diplomatic
effort now has turned toward the ways and possibilities of implementing
UNDRIP within nation-­states.

N a t i o n - ­S t a t e s a n d U N D R I P

The implementation of UNDRIP with nation-­states is one plan for ad-

dressing indigenous issues and will represent progress over past his-
torical actions. However, the plan to address indigenous issues within
nation-­state institutions and governments does not address the full
complexities of nation-­state and indigenous nation relations. In many
ways, UNDRIP treats indigenous peoples either as citizens of nation-­
states or as ethnic minorities with certain collective political, cultural,
and economic rights and historical claims. These positions are not un-
surprising, since they are social groupings that nation-­states are rela-
tively well equipped to acknowledge and incorporate into the national
political and cultural community. UNDRIP, by avoiding a definition of
indigeneity and not recognizing political self-­government from indige-
nous nations, has redefined indigenous nations into citizens and ethnic
groups. This reclassification or redefinition of indigenous peoples and
nations will not satisfy the claims to territory and self-­government that
indigenous nations throughout the world generally uphold. In fact, in-
digenous nations make claims to land and self-­government that nation-­
states are reluctant to acknowledge. Indigenous nations may realize
some advantages within the UNDRIP frame, but most likely they will
not see full indigenous claims to self-­government, territory, and cul-
tural autonomy. The UNDRIP solution and implementation can be only
a partial solution at best.
Why will UNDRIP not satisfy indigenous nations? In the end,
R E V I E W

UNDRIP does not address indigenous political, cultural, and territo-

rial claims on a government-­to-­government or culture-­to-­culture basis.
Most nation-­states ignore the history of indigenous peoples and usu-
S A

ally incorporate indigenous peoples as citizens of the nation-­state with-

S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

out indigenous consent. In this way, indigenous peoples are treated like
a population, a collection of individuals who share a common identity
but not political or cultural institutions or collective territorial claims. 11
Being treated as a population of citizens with a cultural identity does
not provide for recognition of self-­government or territory. Indigenous
history does not start with recognition at the beginning of the nation-­
state, especially when many contemporary democratic nation-­states
have their beginning since the end of World War II. Rather, indigenous
peoples believe they have existed as a community with self-­government

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 and territory from time immemorial, certainly thousands of years be-
fore the formation of contemporary nation-­states.
While nation-­states have unilaterally ignored indigenous history
and socio-­political community, indigenous peoples have not forgot-
ten. Despite the rule of nation-­states and the overlooking of indigenous
rights, many indigenous peoples have persisted and continue to live
their lives informed by their own cultural and socio-­political orders.
Often nation-­states establish the rule of a single cultural order; while
indigenous peoples and nations conform to the nation-­states’ cultural
demands, they have not forgotten their political, cultural, and territo-
rial heritages. In many senses, indigenous nations manage shadow gov-
ernments and communities within nation-­states that do not acknowl-
edge indigenous nations, if not actively rejecting them legally, socially,
and politically.
Indigenous communities do not necessarily reject nation-­state
culture, institutions, and economy. A great fear during the negotia-
tions for UNDRIP was that if indigenous nations were acknowledged
to have powers of self-­government they would withdraw from nation-­
states. Hence an explicit clause in UNDRIP denies indigenous nations
the right to secede from their surrounding nation-­states. Indigenous
nations do not wish to challenge the cultural, political, and institutional
order of the nation-­state. The issue is that many are not socialized to
belong exclusively as citizens of nation-­states, and do not want to sur-
render their indigenous rights or heritages in exchange for full citizen-
ship. Indigenous peoples have loyalties to their own forms of govern-
ment, community, and territoriality, which do not conform to the views
and positions of nation-­states, whose policies usually explicitly deny
such indigenous claims in favor of the nation-­states’ interests.
The view that indigenous peoples are populations of individual
citizens or ethnic groups supports nation-­state policies of equality
and inclusion. The problem with this view is that most indigenous
nations are not a population of individual nation-­state citizens or an
R E V I E W

ethnic group. Indigenous peoples have shared institutions of culture

and government, and often collective economic ownership or steward-
ship. Indigenous peoples are not a racial group, although in many parts
S A

of the world such as the Americas the settler colonists claim they are
S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

of a different race, and treat indigenous peoples as a racially inferior

group. Thus, for example, in the Americas, racial hierarchy compli-
12 cates nation-­state and indigenous relations. However, in many parts of
the world such as Scandinavia, Africa, India, and many parts of Asia,
the indigenous peoples are often of a race similar to the nonindigenous
peoples. Yet in the situations where there is similar racial composi-
tion of peoples, indigenous peoples still persist and are confronted by
analogous demands of incorporation and citizenship with nation-­states
as are indigenous peoples in the Americas. Contrary to nation-­state

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claims and UNDRIP terminology, indigenous peoples do not form eth-
nic groups. Ethnic groups may have collective human rights, but they
do not claim to have territorial rights and rights to self-­government
from time immemorial. Ethnic groups should be distinguished from
submerged nations, who like indigenous peoples have claims to terri-
tory and self-­government.
Indigenous nations do not form a pan-­ethnic or cultural commu-
nity. The United Nations says there are at least five thousand distinct
indigenous communities currently and about 375 million people who
live in indigenous communities. Each of the five thousand or more na-
tions has its own cultural and religious institutions, and its own form of
self-­government. The decentralized and cultural and institutional di-
versity of indigenous nations has always been a major obstacle for past
colonial and present-­day nation-­states to address indigenous issues and
relations.
Indigenous nations often have tightly interrelated institutional re-
lations between culture, government, economy, and community. These
relatively undifferentiated institutional orders create strong identi-
ties and loyalties for continuity of culture and community autonomy.
Contemporary nation-­states strive to separate culture and religion from
politics, community, and economy, which is almost an inverse set of in-
stitutional imperatives than found in indigenous nations.3 The strong
cultural and institutional support for community continuity informs
indigenous actions and their decisions and preferences when confront-
ing the contemporary world of changing markets, competitive govern-
ments, and globalized culture. Indigenous peoples are not averse to
change and development, but they want to confront the changing world
from within their own cultural understandings and goals that require
a measure of cultural continuity under new and changing conditions.4
The relations between nation-­states and indigenous peoples is
one of citizen to nation, but, from the indigenous points of view, they
are also based on government to government relations, and perhaps
R E V I E W

more accurately, relations of cultural order to cultural order. The differ-

ences between nation-­states and indigenous nations are like two holistic
social orders that do not have very much in common in terms of shared
S A

cultural ground or mutual interests and values. In this way, indigenous

S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

communities tolerate one another’s unique internal institutional and

cultural orders, and expect other indigenous nations to tolerate the
uniqueness and differences within their own nations. Similarly, indige- 13
nous peoples do not have an agenda to take apart or challenge nations
or cultures; only to the extent that nation-­states interfere with their cul-
tural and physical continuity do indigenous peoples resist nation-­state
policies. Indigenous peoples want political and territorial recognition
from and democratic relations with nation-­states. While indigenous
values, identities, and actions often do not conform to nation-­state

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 e­ xpectations, these are actions of expressing their own cultural and po-
litical ways within their own institutional orders. While the unusual
behavior and actions of indigenous communities appear nonconformist
and threatening to fundamental nation-­state normative and cultural or-
ders, indigenous peoples to a large extent are expressing only their own
cultural ways. In many ways, indigenous confrontations with nation-­
states are expressions of resistance to nation-­state action or policies
that threaten indigenous cultures, self-­government, and values.
Nation-­states, however, want to extend their own institutional
orders, values, and interests over all citizens, and exclude any com-
peting socio-­political orders. Nation-­states tend to overtly reject and
undermine indigenous social and political orders, while indigenous
peoples tend to respect and tolerate other institutional orders, as long
as they do not interfere with their cultures. Since nation-­states actively
seek to abolish indigenous cultures, self-­government, and territorial
claims, indigenous nations are rightfully suspect of nation-­state polices
and actions. Contemporary theories about indigenous peoples often
argue that indigenous peoples will disappear and be supplanted by
modern nation-­states. The view that indigenous nations and govern-
ments do not exist or will ultimately disappear greatly misjudges the
continuity by which indigenous peoples have survived into the pres-
ent world and will continue into the future. Rather than assuming that
indigenous peoples will be economically and politically marginalized
and incorporated as citizens into nation-­states, a more accurate as-
sumption is that indigenous nations will persist in many forms indefi-
nitely into the future. Once adopting the position that indigenous na-
tions will be permanent cultural, political, and territorial entities within
nation-­states and within the international arena for the indefinite future,
nation-­states should then rethink their policies and understanding of
indigenous peoples within their borders.

Human Rights, Civil Rights,

R E V I E W

Collective Human Rights, and

I n di g e n o u s R i g h t s
S A

Individual human rights are considered the fundamental rights of all

S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

humans on the planet. The international human rights movement, a re-

action to the fascist death camps of World War II, is in some ways an
14 extension of the U.S. Bill of Rights. Indigenous peoples and indigenous
governments generally would not have objections to the application of
human rights. However, to a certain extent indigenous governments
were not parties to the formation of human rights criteria, since only
nation-­states are signers of the treaties. The form and application of
human rights issues may be foreign to indigenous governments, but the
principles involved may be translatable and negotiable. At some point,

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however, indigenous governments and peoples should have the right of
granting consent. There can be no effective human rights without con-
sent by the nations and individuals who are to apply and take responsi-
bility for implementing and upholding human rights protections. Civil
rights, human rights, and indigenous rights do no work well without
consent from the participating nations and peoples.
Civil rights are the rights of citizens within particular nation-­
states and are applicable to all citizens. Indigenous peoples do not ob-
ject to upholding and abiding by civil rights as long as their indigenous
rights are not sacrificed in favor of civil rights. Indigenous peoples want
to maintain their own indigenous rights to self-­government, culture,
and territory, but also want civil rights like other citizens. Indigenous
and civil rights might conflict, so the position is not entirely consistent.
Maintaining both indigenous and civil rights at the same time implies
a form of plural citizenship, in both the nation-­state and within an in-
digenous nation. Only the United States and Canada have an unofficial
form of plural citizenship for indigenous peoples, while most nation-­
states recognize indigenous peoples solely as national citizens.
Collective human rights as outlined within UNDRIP suggests
that all claims must be adjudicated before nation-­state political, legisla-
tive, or judicial institutions. This plan of relying primarily on nation-­
state institutions negates the autonomy and powers of indigenous self-­
government. Collective human rights are meant to serve the interests
of collective groups, like a group of ethnic citizens who have a common
claim and have consented that their claims are appropriately adjudi-
cated within the nation-­state institutional order. Most naturalized mi-
grant citizens and native-­born citizens accept the obligations and du-
ties of nation-­state citizens. Many indigenous nations, however, do not
agree fully that the institutions of the nation-­state should adjudicate
their claims to self-­government and territory. Rather such issues should
be negotiated and treated on a government-­to-­government basis, if not
within international fora. The collective human rights positions pre-
R E V I E W

sented within UNDRIP do not recognize indigenous rights outside

the institutions of the nation-­state, while substituting collective human
rights granted to national citizens for indigenous rights.5 This position
S A

denies indigenous rights and reduces collective human rights to a form

S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

of minority or ethnic rights.

UNDRIP Assumptions 15

In many ways, UNDRIP is a summary of existing collective and in-

dividual human rights, and deliberately avoids investigating or intro-
ducing an indigenous rights perspective.6 According to Chandra K.
Roy, “The Declaration clarifies and confirms the rights that are already
formally legally binding and applicable to indigenous peoples.” 7 After

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 reaffirming the existing treaties, declarations, and international laws af-
fecting indigenous peoples, UNDRIP summarizes and brings all the ex-
isting relevant language together and expresses it in a way more directly
addressed to the needs of indigenous peoples. The exercise of bringing
together the existing international law and rights of indigenous peoples
in one document is a major achievement, but it did not introduce any-
thing new about the structure of international law or the institutional
processes for the protection of human rights. Nevertheless, the inter-
pretations of the law and the means of implementation remained within
the long-­standing international institutional arrangements, and did not
accommodate or embrace an indigenous rights perspective.
Further, the UNDRIP did not include any “special rights” and
upheld a primary focus of contemporary nation-­states that all citizens
were equal before the law. According to Adelfo Regino Montes and
Gustavo Torres Cisneros, “The Declaration can be ambiguous, but this
is a virtue and not a defect. It does not enshrine preferential or special
rights but rather recognizes specific rights aimed at recognizing and
protecting a vulnerable and historically excluded sector of society.”8
The argument of no special rights in UNDRIP is a denial of rights
for indigenous people outside of the national rights of citizens. Many
nations held that indigenous peoples were already citizens, and that
making arguments for self-­government and territorial claims were cre-
ating privileges that were not accessible by other citizens. Indigenous
peoples are considered citizens of the nation-­state, without regard for
whether they are consensual citizens. Since indigenous peoples, in this
view, are considered part of society and the body politic, regardless of
their specific histories and cultural–institutional orders, it is assumed
that indigenous peoples are already consensual parties to the formation
and institutions of the nation-­state.
Some indigenous individuals may make the choice to join the na-
tional culture and economy, and assume citizenship and reject indige-
nous community and culture. This is a voluntary choice that is made
R E V I E W

by many indigenous people. Some indigenous nations may elect to

take on an ethnic or mestizo identity and seek redress through national
institutions.
S A

Those who elect to remain within indigenous communities, how-

S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

ever, are making the choice not to join in mainstream institutions and
government, or rather are privileging their own community institutions
16 and forms of self-­government first and participating in national institu-
tions secondarily. At any rate, the arguments of no special rights are an
expression that indigenous peoples have no rights that other national
citizens do not have.9 This position denies indigenous rights and the
autonomy of indigenous cultural and political community, and forces
indigenous people to participate as citizens, often without their con-
sent. The policy to deny indigenous peoples political rights and par-

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ticipation on their own cultural and political grounds invites contin-
ued nonparticipation and continuity of indigenous life in resistance to
rather than cooperation with the nation-­state.
The UNDRIP does not define “indigenous peoples.” Certainly
providing a universal definition for indigenous peoples is a daunting
task. Early attempts at specifying indigenous peoples focused on the
term “indigenous populations,” which denied community and political
structure as well as history and culture. More recent definitions focus
on self-­definition: “The right of self-­definition was claimed, combining
subjective elements of self-­identification and its complement, commu-
nity acceptance.”10 Reliance on self and community definition, how-
ever, tends to reduce indigenous people to minority or ethnic group
status, and denies their history and social and cultural differences. The
complexity of providing a definition ultimately led to the removal of a
definitional article within the Declaration.11 Clear and specific defini-
tions, however, might support claims to resources and territories from
indigenous nations with extremely different cultures, social institu-
tions, and religious systems from those of the nation-­states. It appears
that nation-­states in Africa and Asia, in particular, wanted to avoid cre-
ating definitions that might empower claims to territory by culturally
diverse indigenous peoples.12
The current UNDRIP avoidance of a clear definition for indige-
nous peoples leaves the decision in the hands of each nation-­state.
Nation-­states set the criteria and make decisions about who has rights
as an indigenous person or community. There are few if any checks and
balances on nation-­states when they make policy for indigenous peoples
or decide whom to recognize and for what purposes. Indigenous nations
in Asia and Africa, who do not have the resources to protect their land
and cultural resources, are bound to suffer significant losses of land in
the twenty-­first century, just as indigenous peoples lost land and re-
sources over the last five hundred years in the Americas. At a critical
time and on the critical issues of land and definition, UNDRIP fell short
R E V I E W

of providing needed protection to indigenous peoples.

In the Declaration, the issue of self-­determination was recast
as a bundle of rights: “The issue of self-­determination can be broken
S A

down into a bundle of rights. Among the most important are the right
S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

to preserve cultural identity, to have collective authority over decisions

related to the land and territory in which they live, and to determine
the nature and scope of development activities within the territory.”13 17
Recasting self-­determination as a bundle of rights captures issues of
self-­government and self-­determination within the legal frameworks of
nation-­states. Some nation-­states may take enlightened positions and
support indigenous traditions of self-­government and territorial au-
tonomy. Other nation-­states may be less willing to enhance possibili-
ties of indigenous claims to territory and resources. Negotiations about

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 self-­government and self-­determination might be more satisfactory for
indigenous nations if they were held on a government-­to-­government
basis, as they are currently done in the United States and Canada.
The UNDRIP is designed to enable the participation of indige-
nous peoples within new and emerging possibilities of democratic
multiculturalism. UN diplomats are hopeful that the twenty-­first cen-
tury will bring the rise of new multicultural nation-­states, and a de-
cline of the nation-­states that maintain the primacy of a single culture.14
The emergence of multicultural nation-­states offers new possibilities
for greater inclusion of heretofore-­marginalized groups. The contem-
porary intellectual climate, although perhaps not the general national
communities, increasingly provides support for inclusion of different
groups based on class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, minority, and
culture. Multicultural, critical race, postmodern, and postcolonial ar-
guments favor social and political inclusion of multiple diversities
within the national community and nation-­state. The UNDRIP imple-
mentation plan suggests that indigenous peoples should participate in
the new multicultural nation-­states that will recognize and welcome
indigenous political and cultural participation. UNDRIP implies that
indigenous peoples are like all other citizens, and therefore indigenous
peoples should join willingly into a more inclusive multicultural nation-­
state and enjoy equality and access to economic opportunities.
The UNDRIP plan reduces indigenous rights and values to an in-
vitation to participate in a more fully inclusive multicultural nation-­state.
This plan will work for many indigenous persons and groups who elect
to enter the national community and assume national or ethnic identi-
ties, but not for those who chose to live within indigenous communities.
The multicultural nation-­state, as well as the single culture state, is about
assimilation and acculturation, but not about recognizing indigenous
peoples as distinct institutionally, culturally, and politically. Participation
in a multicultural nation-­state will not fully satisfy or supersede in-
digenous loyalties and commitments to community, holistic and non-­
R E V I E W

differentiated institutional orders, and religious ways of life. Reducing

indigenous peoples to ethnic groups or marginalized class groups does
not fully comprehend the complexity and deep loyalties that indigenous
S A

peoples have to their own social orders and ways of life.

S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

Many indigenous peoples, pushed by the changing global market

system, will approach the national and international markets and po-
18 litical systems. Indigenous peoples will want to fully participate in na-
tional culture and political institutions, though not to the extent of giv-
ing up their rights to political self-­government, territory, and culture.
The multicultural nation-­state does not fully satisfy the needs and cul-
tural goals of indigenous peoples. They want to participate in the world
and the nation-­state, but they want to do so informed by their own
histories, cultures, and interests. Political inclusion within the nation-­

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state that is not closely informed by cultural and institutional support
may be a difficult choice for most indigenous persons and nations. The
multicultural state requires a separation of politics and culture in ways
that may be foreign to indigenous community members.
The multicultural state is still an unrealized promise; but even
if realized, it will not solve the issues confronting indigenous peoples.
Multi­cultural states will want indigenous peoples to remove themselves
from the holistic relations among culture, politics, community, and
economy that often prevail in indigenous nations. Indigenous com-
munities are a different kind of social system from the multicultural,
market-­based nation-­state, where culture and religion would be largely
removed from the political process. Some indigenous nations might
adapt to the new multicultural ideal for democratic nation-­states. Such
choices may require abandonment of indigenous social and cultural
communities for ethnic or mestizo status, which often explicitly rejects
indigenous identities and ways of life. Many indigenous nations and
persons, however, will not abandon their cultures and will continue to
demand recognition of indigenous rights within multicultural nation-­
states. Unfortunately, multicultural nation-­states, just like their mono-
cultural predecessors, will be institutionally incapable of addressing
the values, interests, and social organization of indigenous peoples.

Conclusion

UNDRIP is designed to accommodate the primary ways in which nation-­

states manage relations with minority groups or ethnic minorities. A chief
objective is to avoid defining indigenous nations and thereby passing
over indigenous claims to self-­government and territory. Indigenous
rights of pre-­nation-­state political autonomy, territory, and holistic
inter­dependent institutional orders that are qualitatively different from
those of nation-­states are not central or acknowledged. Indigenous
rights are reformulated, packaged as legal and political claims within
R E V I E W

nation-­state institutions. Each nation-­state has the power to settle and

decide its own indigenous policies. While the range and detail of an
indigenous bundle of human rights are more diverse than are minority
S A

and ethnic group rights, UNDRIP extends the rights of the Declaration
S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

to all groups of citizens who can make a claim. Nevertheless, the elabo-
ration and extension of collective human rights is one of the achieve-
ments of UNDRIP. 19
The UNDRIP avoids defining indigenous peoples and recog-
nizing the historical precedence and unique cultural orders and iden-
tities of indigenous peoples. By reducing indigenous peoples’ claims
to rights of citizens and collective groups of citizens, UNDRIP ig-
nores indigenous rights in favor of national citizenship. The creators
of UNDRIP see the repackaging of indigenous rights and claims into

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 bundles of rights within nation-­state institutions as a means for indige-
nous nations to seek redress and protection of their interests and views.
The UNDRIP in its present iteration presents a comprehensive plan
for incorporation of indigenous peoples into nation-­state institutions
and community. While most indigenous peoples may be willing to
join into national government and culture, most indigenous peoples
will also want to maintain their cultures, forms of self-­government,
and claims to territory that ensure their present and future economic
prospects. The experience of the United States and Canada has de-
veloped along lines of citizens plural, which recognizes the extralegal
character of indigenous peoples’ participation in the nation-­state. In
both countries, a certain level of self-­government and territorial use is
recognized.
UNDRIP, however, does not recognize the extra-­national-­legal
character of indigenous nations, and requires submission of indige-
nous views, claims, and interests to national institutions. Indigenous
nations are required to accept nation-­states as the primary form of po-
litical and legal process, which results in a form of political and legal
integration. If this is done, then indigenous issues can be solved within
nation-­state legal and political frameworks, at least from the point
of view of the nation-­state government. To do otherwise is to ask for
special rights, which is not compatible with a democratic nation-­state
of politically equal citizens. Rights and long traditions of indigenous
self-­government, collective community and government, and collec-
tive orientations to the land are bypassed. Questions of land owner-
ship and control over resources are placed before nation-­states, many
of which do not have strong records of protecting indigenous land and
resources.
The UNDRIP plan may work within nation-­states that seek to
recognize indigenous nations and their rights to self-­government, cul-
tural autonomy, and territory within nation-­state legal and political in-
stitutions. Most nation-states, however, do not recognize indigenous
R E V I E W

rights, and UNDRIP gives them no incentives to do so. Most modern-

izing and mestizo-­based nation-­states reject the continuity and rights of
indigenous peoples and their forms of social and cultural organization.
S A

Incorporating indigenous nations into multicultural nation-­states

S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

will not solve the problems for many, if not most, indigenous nations.
They will not gain social inclusion unless they conform to nation-­state
20 national, social, and political institutions. In many places, indigenous
peoples are distinguished largely by their intentions to maintain their
own cultures, and their unwillingness to exchange indigenous identities
for citizenship within modernizing nation-­state or mestizo-­oriented
nationalities. Nation-­states should assume that indigenous nations will
continue into the indefinite future. Many indigenous persons and com-
munities will not assimilate to a mono-­or multicultural nation-­state.

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Most likely, indigenous peoples will continue to contest the powers
that nation-­states exercise in indigenous affairs. The contestations of
national, political, and cultural inclusion are not necessarily intended
to defy nation-­state authority, but rather to enable indigenous com-
munities to live in the ways that are informed by their own histories,
cultures, and institutional orders.
UNDRIP may be a positive step for human rights initiatives,
but it does not address many of the fundamental questions of indige-
nous rights, and provides a solution that may be ultimately rejected
by many indigenous nations. The international, national, and indige-
nous communities will need to continue to seek a solution that extends
beyond UNDRIP. Nation-­states need to find new mechanisms, other
than acculturation, assimilation, or even multiculturalism, in order to
in­corporate indigenous nations into nation-­states democratically while
enabling and supporting indigenous peoples to realize self-­government,
cultural autonomy, and control over territory.

A u t h o r B i o g r a p h y

Duane Champagne has authored or edited more than 125 publica-

tions on issues of social and cultural change in both historical and con-
temporary Native American communities. He is a professor of soci-
ology, law, and American Indian studies at UCLA.

N o t e s

1 Elissavet Stamatopoulou, UN 4 Ibid., 45–106, 285–349.

Secretariat of the Permanent
Forum on Indigenous Peoples,
New York. UN Offices, personal
communication, 2008.
2 Claire Charters and Rodolfo
Stavenhagen, eds., Making the
Declaration Work: The United Na-
5 Erica-­Irene Daes, “The Contribu-
tion of the Working Group on
Indigenous Populations to the
Genesis and Evolution of the UN
Declaration on the Rights of In-
digenous Peoples,” Charters and
Stavenhagen, Making the Declara-
R E V I E W

tions Declaration on the Rights of tion Work, 49–51, 74.

Indigenous Peoples (Copenhagen:
International Work Group for 6 Albert Barume, “Responding to the
Indigenous Affairs, 2009). For a Concerns of the African States,”
S A

characterization of the indige- Charters and Stavenhagen, Making

the Declaration Work, 162–64.
S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O

nous peoples’ movements see

Duane Champagne, “The Indige-
7 Chandra K. Roy, “Indigenous
nous Peoples’ Movement: Theory,
Policy, and Practice,” Kalfou: A
Journal of Comparative and Relational
Ethnic Studies 1, no. 1 (2010): 77–93.
3 Duane Champagne, Social Change
and Cultural Continuity Among Native
Nations (Lanham, Md.: AltaMira
Press, 2007), 25–44.
21
Peoples in Asia: Rights and De-
velopment Challenges,” Charters
and Stavenhagen, Making the
Declaration Work, 212–13. See also
Dalee Sambo Dorough, “The
Significance of the Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
and Its Future Implementation,”

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All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 N o
Charters and Stavenhagen, Mak-
ing the Declaration Work, 265–68;
Luis Rodriguez-­Piñero Royo,
“‘Where Appropriate’: Monitor-
ing/Implementing of Indigenous
People’s Rights Under the Dec-
laration,” Charters and Staven­
hagen, 318–19, 336–37.
8 Adelfo Regino Montes and
Gustavo Torres Cisneros, “The
United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:
The Foundation of a New Re-
lationship Between Indigenous
Peoples, States, and Societies,”
Charters and Stavenhagen, Mak-
ing the Declaration Work, 141.
9 Luis Enrique Chavez, “The Dec-
laration on the Rights of Indige-
nous Peoples Breaking the Impasse:
The Middle Ground,” Charters
and Stavenhagen, Making the Dec-
laration Work, 103.
10 Augusto Willemsen Diaz, “How
Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
Reached the UN,” Charters and
Stavenhagen, Making the Declara-
tion Work, 30.
R E V I E W
S A
S P R I NG 2 0 1 3     W I C A Z O
22
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All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
t e s
11 Chavez, “The Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Breaking the Impasse,” 103.
12 Montes and Cisneros, “The
United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,”
150–51.
13 Asbjorn Eide, “The Indigenous
Peoples, the Working Group on
Indigenous Populations, and the
Adoption of the UN Declara-
tion on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples,” Charters and Staven­
hagen, Making the Declaration Work,
44–45.
14 Bartolomé Clavero, “Cultural
Supremacy, Domestic Constitu-
tions, and the Declaration of the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples,”
Charters and Stavenhagen,
Making the Declaration Work, 344;
­Rodolfo Stavenhagen, “Making
the Declaration Work,” Charters
and Stavenhagen, Making the Dec-
laration Work, 353, 364, 367–69.