UN body for indigenous peoples "a step towards equal rights"

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) sees the inaugural meeting today of the "Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues" at the United Nations as a first step to recognition of indigenous peoples as equal partners. "But more reforms need to follow," said the human rights organisation on Monday in Göttingen, Germany. "This new body, which for the first time formally integrates the indigenous peoples into the UN hierarchy can function only with a secretariat and a budget of its own." Currently the secretariat of the Permanent Forum is attached to that of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Its work is to be financed from the current budget of the UN. Hundreds of indigenous people from all over the world are traveling to the USA for the inaugural session. "The forum should be given a secretariat in Geneva and hold its annual meetings there," demanded the GfbV, "that is what many representatives of indigenous peoples want." It was the only way they could continue using the infrastructure of political contacts to the UN institutions, governments and non-governmental organisations in Europe based there, which grew since the 1980s within the framework of the UN Working Group Indigenous Peoples (WGIP). The Permanent Forum is to replace the WGIP. The Forum is a consultative subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN. As a body of experts, the Forum is to advise and make recommendations to ECOSOC on economic and social development, culture, human rights, the environment, education and health. Either ECOSOC translates these recommendations into action or it passes them on to other UN bodies. Half each of the 16 members of the Forum will be representatives of national states and indigenous organisations. Their mandates run for three years initially. Decisions are made by consensus. Critics argue that the representatives of national states are being given too much influence in the Permanent Forum, because they could nominate their representatives for election through ECOSOC, while the representative of the indigenous peoples are appointed by the president of ECOSOC. The Permanent Forum will be on a "test run" of five years. After that the ECOSOC will take a final decision on the form, contents and powers of this first forum for indigenous issues, in which indigenous people are at least represented.