Looking back to move forward: the status of environmental rights under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was adopted after contentious negotiations. When compared with the 1994 UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Draft Declaration), article 29 of UNDRIP falls short on the definition of environment, its management and accountability for environmental violations. Therefore, the article analyses whether article 29 lacks effective environmental-rights protection, and what imprint the Draft Declaration has on UNDRIP? This article further examines the development of international law on business and human rights, sustainable development, climate change, and trade law after 2007. The consequence of ignoring this development is having tragic outcomes on indigenous peoples’ environmental rights upon which they depend for their subsistence, culture and development rights. Looking at indigenous peoples’ environmental rights through the Draft Declaration, therefore, will help to understand both the challenges faced by UNDRIP and gives the opportunity to discuss a potential free-standing environmental right under the Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which would be the natural progression from the UNDRIP. Such a right could eliminate conflicts with indigenous peoples’ rights to development and culture. Also, it could bring coherence and integration between indigenous peoples’ rights and international law developed after 2007.