DDR Needs Your Financial Help & Why Dooda (NO) Desert Rock Should Go To Switzerland:
DOODA (NO) DESERT ROCK COMMITTEE
Elouise Brown, President
P.O. Box 7838
Newcomb, Navajo Nation, (New Mexico) 87455
thebrownmachine@hotmail.com
505-947-6159
April 26, 2010
DOODA (NO) DESERT ROCK AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS:
Why Dooda Desert Rock should participate in the
Third Session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva
Problem:
Dooda (NO) Desert Rock (DDR) is a grassroots environmental and government reform group that came together in December 2006 in response to an assault on the people and the land in northwest New Mexico, Chaco Rio, Navajo Nation, NM. Its members stood off drillers, fought for their free speech rights in the Shiprock District Court, and participated in Alternative Climate Summit in Bolivia. Elouise Brown, the organization’s president, helped in the development of a landmark statement of the Rights of Mother Earth in international law.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in September of 2007. It is an important statement of the rights of the Navajo People because Article 26 assures the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands and resources and Article 29 guarantees the right to the conservation and protection of the environment. The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were “persistent objectors” to the validity of the Declaration, and while Australia and New Zealand have changed their positions to one in support of the Declaration, the United States continues to stonewall the international human rights contained in the document.
The United States and other nations resist the international human right of indigenous peoples to full, free and informed consent to the use of their lands and resources because that will delay the activities of developers and protect land and resources.
Among them are rights to protection from nuclear testing, toxic and dangerous waste storage, mining and logging that have a negative impact on Mother Earth and the adverse effects of economic activities for the exploitation of natural resources by transnational corporations. Those practices were condemned in the observations of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the U.S. record of compliance with the treaty that bans discrimination as it impacts indigenous peoples. Committee Report at ¶¶ 29, 30 (8 May 2008).
The United Nations is paying attention to problems of exploitation by natural resource companies and those who support them, and an international workshop on the issue and the need to set a framework for consultation, benefit-sharing and dispute resolution was held in Moscow in December of 2008. That prompted a call for the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights to establish standards for extractive industries operating in and near indigenous lands and a November 21, 2009 letter from Elouise Brown to the Commissioner supporting that effort. Dooda Desert Rock’s attorney, James W. Zion, spoke with the Special Rapporteur on indigenous issues about the letter and Dooda initiative in a meeting in January 2010.
There are three important United Nations initiatives to promote the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—the annual U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the Special Rapporteur on the fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The last is an international body of five experts that meets to get indigenous input into its recommendations to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the primary U.N. human rights oversight body.
The Expert Mechanism will hold its third session in Geneva, Switzerland from 12 through 16 July 2010. The primary themes of the session will be the human right to participate in decision-making and enforcement of the Declaration.
James Anaya, the Special Rapporteur on indigenous issues, will hold individual meetings with indigenous groups.
Dooda Desert Rock wants to be in Geneva to (1) speak to how the right of participation needs to be improved on national, local and tribal levels; (2) promote the new Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth adopted in Bolivia; and (3) meet with the Special Rapporteur to follow up on Dooda Desert Rock’s urging that he take charge of setting standards for extractive industries to protect indigenous lands and resources and protect the rights of Mother Earth.
Dooda needs funding for air fare, ground transportation, lodging, meals and expenses to carry out that important work. It will be the only indigenous organization that focuses solely on land and environmental issues and the organization that is acting as a spearhead for the establishment of international standards for extractive industries.
