It’s all about priorities…

On July 5th the United Nations Human Rights Council approved, without consensus, a draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Declaration will now go to the General Assembly, hopefully in September.

The United States is expected to reject it.

According to James W. Zion who served as an Indigenous Delegate when the draft was discussed prior to being submitted to the UNHRC, the Declaration emerged from a sharply contrasted committee. The State Delegates engaged in double-talk and informal closed-door meetings outside of the committee while the Indigenous Delegates answered vague disapproval of the draft with reasonable requests for objections to be more specific and tied to issues of international law. In the end, the Indigenous Delegates could only guess at what the true objections were, noting that the US Delegation added as little to the public discussion as possible.

While the final submitted and approved draft wasn’t everything the Indigenous Delegation wanted, it would have been a more significant document if the UNHRC had approved it unanimously, as human rights declarations normally are. Going to the General Assembly without consensus, though, means there is little chance that the Declaration, even if it passes there, will translate into binding international law, which seems to be just what the US hoped for.

So what bothers the US about the Declaration?

Is the offending verbiage in Part IV, Article 15? Some US policymakers may read it to suggest that Native American children are entitled to free education at all levels. Or what about Part V, Article 24? Some might claim it suggests that Native Americans should receive free healthcare. Heck, no other American citizens get that. But many other countries in the world regard education and health care as basic human rights, so the US is often placed in the unfortunate position of rejecting declarations and protocols that, while clearly human rights or environmental no-brainers on the surface, seem to be laced with socialist sentiment.

However, consider this. According to Indian Country Today, in a debate in June over the draft the United States, New Zealand, and Australia issued a statement calling into question articles that address self-determination and entitlement to land and resources. The statement was quoted as saying, "'They ignore the contemporary realities in many countries with indigenous populations by appearing to require the recognition of indigenous rights to lands now lawfully owned by other citizens. Such provisions would be both arbitrary and impossible to implement."

Now, in my reading of the Declaration, there is a provision made for situations where it is impractical or unethical to give land and/or resources back to the Indigenous People, and that is compensation for said lands and resources AND the ability of parties to appeal to "international bodies" if they aren’t satisfied with how treaty disputes have been resolved (check out Part VII, Article 36).

And this, I’m certain, is the actual rub. The US in particular knows that there is no chance that it would be on the winning side of any treaty dispute that is brought before the UN or any other "international body". Therefore, a binding Declaration would force the US to review all of its broken treaties (and several other bad policy decisions) and compensate Indigenous Peoples with lands and resources or, barring that, in billions of dollars in such a way as will satisfy those Indigenous Peoples.

But wait… that means less cash to spend on war…

So the Declaration will probably pass in the General Assembly but without the support of the one country that ought to be championing it. It will be a token victory for Indigenous Peoples across the globe because the UN political wrangling will not make it legally binding. And, in supreme irony, the country that brags more than any other about being a friend to Grandpappy will have contributed a great deal to that outcome.

Love thy neighbor indeed.