Vol. 10 No. 1 (2011)

In this edition of the Fourth World Journal our contributors explore the subjects of American Indian “lived experience” in the face of the US government’s policy of “termination,” democracy, and consent. Contributors to FWJ have given voice to a basic human right that indigenous peoples the world over seek to enjoy, but have yet to fully realize. The power to make one’s own decisions is taken for granted by civil society in most countries, but for indigenous peoples there are only glimmers of that power. Mostly indigenous peoples experience the consequences of decisions by those who are in control of the machinery of state exercising unilateral power that can only be resisted or acceded to. There is little room for compromise or negotiations.

More than 145 states’ governments approved in 2007 the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, yet only two of those states (Bolivia and Denmark) have formally enacted legislation implementing the Declaration in whole or in part. A key principle written into the Declaration is recognition of indigenous peoples’ right, indeed, power of consent, yet this ordinary right guaranteed under all internationally recognized human rights law remains unfulfilled for indigenous peoples. States were formed over the last century (most of them since the 1948 agreement to decolonize countries) on top of indigenous peoples—most of the time without their consent. The world’s ruling powers in twentieth century simply assumed all of the different peoples inside the prescribed boundaries of a new state were willing participants in the decolonization process. Mostly, they were not. Once established on top of indigenous peoples, many immigrant states such as the United States, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and Israel simply claimed and confiscated indigenous peoples’ territories. Consent may have been written
into some agreements and treaties, but respect for the right of consent would be papered over repeatedly.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, indigenous peoples have vigorously pursued recognition of their right to consent. They want the right of individuals to consent as well as the collective right of consent.

In just the last fifteen years international organizations have, (under persistent pressure from indigenous peoples’ representatives in Geneva, New York, Bangkok, Berlin, and other venues where new international conventions have been negotiated) adopted new international agreements incorporating this idea that indigenous peoples must have their right to consent recognized and effectively incorporated in decisions affecting their lives and property. These new international agreements such as the Convention on Biodiversity, the Convention to Combat Desertification, and a new treaty to supplement the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change being negotiated in a series of annual meetings referred to as Conference of Parties seemingly embrace the right of indigenous peoples to consent first, after they have been freely informed, to actions or policies that directly affect them. Yet even as such agreements are being struck,
indigenous peoples are not official participants in the negotiations and states’ governments signing these agreements are not engaging in legislative efforts to incorporate these agreements in domestic law.

Contributors in this issue spotlight critical concerns that bear on the principle of consent so widely touted in international agreements. It is clear by their commentary that the individual states’ have much to do to formally incorporate the principle of consent for indigenous peoples, and of equal or greater import, indigenous peoples must take more deliberate action on their own to create and activate their own instruments for consent.