Publication by India Reed Bowers
Indigenous Nations & Peoples Law eJournal, Center for Indigenous Law, Governance and Citizenship, Syracuse University College of Law, 2013
"This LL.M. thesis provides legal arguments for, amongst other things, the inclusion of Indigenou... more "This LL.M. thesis provides legal arguments for, amongst other things, the inclusion of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples as Members of the United Nations (equal to States, but not required to form States) through an equality- and dignity-based examination of UN Decolonization, 'friendly relations', and self-determination. The arguments contained within also provide an examination of the violations of International Law resulting from, amongst other topics addressed, discrimination committed by the United Nations and States against Indigenous and Tribal Peoples via State-Indigenous governing relationships. Limited access to justice and limited actualized rights in regards to Indigenous Peoples’ self-determination are discussed with reference to Tribal/Indigenous/State shared histories, legal personality, the International Court of Justice and judicial procedure and remedy, State anti-discrimination laws, the UN and its relationship to international trade and business, the codification of international human rights and criminal law, mental health (with special attention to high Indigenous suicide rates in 'developed' States, colonialism and discrimination), current UN definitions of 'aggression', 'war', 'colonialism' and 'conflict' (with suggestions of definition revisions), State abuse towards Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, segregation and exclusion, and apartheid and cultural genocide as resulting from State-Indigenous inequality as experienced by Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. UN definitions of ‘development’ are challenged and held accountable for cultural discrimination and death. Recommendations with an emphasis on healing include amendment of the UN Charter and suggested General Assembly Resolutions, as well as equal international leadership opportunity for traditional and chosen Indigenous and Tribal legal and governing cultures, subsistence-based lifeways and traditional Indigenous and Tribal healers with a focus on the right to cultural integrity, traditional Indigenous and Tribal lands, including the right to say 'no' to non-native land-grabbing, resource exploitation and State abuses. The argument that State territorial integrity includes Indigenous and Tribal traditional lands is also countered. The original version of this LL.M. thesis was submitted to the Master's of Law program 'International Law of Human Rights and Criminal Justice' at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, 22 August 2012. This online version was uploaded 5 March 2013."
See also (background paper): https://www.academia.edu/101121793/Indigenous_Peoples_Decolonization_and_Self_Determination_and_the_Human_Rights_Regime_in_International_Relations
...
Distributed in:
INDIGENOUS NATIONS & PEOPLES LAW eJOURNAL, Vol. 9, No. 10: Mar 29, 2013, Center for Indigenous Law, Governance and Citizenship, Syracuse University College of Law
PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW eJOURNAL, Vol. 8, No. 45: Apr 9, 2013, ALAN SYKES, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Stanford University - Law School
HUMAN RIGHTS & THE GLOBAL ECONOMY eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 30: Mar 20, 2013, MARTHA F. DAVIS, EDITOR, Associate Dean, Professor of Law and Co-Director, Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy, Northeastern University - School of Law, RASHMI DYAL-CHAND, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Northeastern University - School of Law, WENDY E. PARMET, EDITOR, George J. and Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished University Professor of Law, Northeastern University - School of Law
LAW & CULTURE eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 19: Mar 26, 2013, BRUCE L. HAY, EDITOR
Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, REVA B. SIEGEL, EDITOR, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law, Yale University - Law School , University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law
LAW, NORMS & INFORMAL ORDER eJOURNAL, Vol. 9, No. 12: Mar 21, 2013, RICHARD H. MCADAMS, EDITOR, Bernard D. Meltzer Professor, University of Chicago Law School
LAW & SOCIETY: INTERNATIONAL & COMPARATIVE LAW eJOURNAL, Sponsored by: Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Vol. 8, No. 54: Mar 22, 2013, CHRISTIANA OCHOA, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW eJOURNAL, Vol. 8, No. 45: Apr 9, 2013, ALAN SYKES, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Stanford University - Law School
CONFLICT STUDIES eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 38: Aug 21, 2013, KELLY M. KADERA, EDITOR
Associate Professor, University of Iowa - Department of Political Science, BRIAN H. LAI, EDITOR, Associate Professor, University of Iowa - Department of Political Science
POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS: INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 46: Mar 18, 2013, DAVID A. LAKE, EDITOR, Professor, UC San Diego
Social Responsibility of Business eJournals: Vol. 2, No. 159: 27 Nov 2013, LAW, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS & CSR eJOURNAL, EDITOR, Timothy M. Devinney, Professor of International Business University of Manchester - Alliance Manchester Business School
Legal Briefs, Authored by India Reed Bowers
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Fourteenth Session
New York, 20 April - 1 May... more United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Fourteenth Session
New York, 20 April - 1 May 2015
Item 5: Half-day discussion on the expert group meeting on the theme “Dialogue on an optional protocol to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”
28 April 2015
Statement by India Reed Bowers for International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE)
IOSDE honors the traditional territories of the Lenape Nation, Onondaga Peoples and all Indigenous Peoples here today.
IOSDE is concerned that over the many years of submissions and interventions at the UNPFII from Indigenous Peoples concerning mass atrocities against their Peoples, families and communities and thus humanity through State- and business-initiated torture, murder, militarization, criminalization and systematic devastation the Permanent Forum and UN system still refer to such horrors as human rights violations only. The concern is that Indigenous victims’ submissions are not being outwardly identified as reporting atrocities also in the context of international crimes and violations of international criminal law from a legal and/or victim-based advocacy perspective and analysis.
Yes, the United Nations is a Human Rights institution- however, the UN was founded with the primary goal and commitment of the world community stop genocide from ever happening again after the holocaust and WW2. In the context of Indigenous Peoples, is the UN actually doing this, and can we have this discussion if we are going to talk about a rights violation mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and the UNDRIP? What is the plan for how a UNDRIP complaint or review mechanism will address serious crimes against humanity and other crimes against peoples such as genocide, such as those we hear testimonials of here every year at the UNPFII, if reporting to the Human Rights Council? And in such a mechanism, where will claims of right to decolonize as a form of self- determination go within the UN system? ...
Sami Parliament of Sweden (Sametinget), 2015
"Sametinget welcomes the visit of Ms. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz to Sápmi this August 2015 in her exa... more "Sametinget welcomes the visit of Ms. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz to Sápmi this August 2015 in her examination of the current status of the Indigenous Rights of the Sami People residing in Sápmi and Sweden.
Sápmi is the traditional territory of the Sami People currently politically and territorially divided by the borders of the Nation-States of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. In preparation for Ms. Tauli-Corpuz’s visit, this Report provides some follow-up and additional information concerning both new developments and issues addressed and not addressed in conjunction with the previous visit (2010) to Sápmi and Sweden of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Mr. James Anaya, and his concluding Report to the Human Rights Council of the status of the Sami People in Sweden, Finland and Norway produced in 2011 . In addition to any other materials and submissions she receives from other institutions, groups and persons, Ms. Tauli-Corpuz will receive in-person input regarding the status of the Sami People during her visit to Sápmi in late August 2015 during pre-arranged, interactive dialogues with State and Sami representatives and speakers as well as local visits to specific Sami areas with a highlighting of specific issues the Sami People are facing in the context of Indigenous Rights, among other activities..."
https://www.sametinget.se/92639
via the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 2018
"I. Introduction
1. Sweden has for many years been formally criticized for racism, d... more "I. Introduction
1. Sweden has for many years been formally criticized for racism, discrimination and exclusivity faced by immigrants and persons of immigrant family origin within the State. Sweden’s policies and systems, but even more importantly the social atmosphere lived-in daily, continue to condone an assimilationist mentality, versus integration as a support to a pro-positive, pro-active multiculturalism. Assimilation-based approaches to law and policy as well as systems designs putn on-majority women and those persons facing intersectional discriminations, especially, at risk. Many in Swedish society continue to debate to this day if multiculturalism itself is a good thing or something Sweden should engage in at all. This debate (or silence and assimilationist approaches) occurs while all persons in Sweden considered to be ‘non-nationals’, ‘foreign-born nationals’, and even ‘national minorities’ (a Sweden-specific category of State identity, to be discussed later)and other non-majority persons are forced to wait in the wings to be accepted at some multicultural point in the future of Sweden as having own cultures, new contributions to be credited and paid for, and adding positive diversity to decision-making, influence, rights, analyses and voices. This waiting includes blockages in the forms of access to diversely expertise-based employment, diversity as self-representation as non-majority on issues, platforms, and otherwise,and access to non-discriminatory human-rights-based and criminal justice implementations and mechanisms as victims.
2.This reality of intersectional discrimination severely affects women in Sweden, especially, who are already at a disadvantage as women, compounded by discrimination based on ethnic or national origin or race. However, Sweden has formally and strictly sated that it does not apply an intersectional approach in its action plans against discrimination.3Hence, when Sweden and its organizations and systems continue to lobby and rally together to create an appearance to the outside world as strong and superior in women’s and human rights, in general, or by certain designs, it is exactly the women and others facing intersectional discrimination in real time who suffer most..."
Alternative Report for the CERD Review of Sweden, Submitted by International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE) to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 95th Session / April-May 2018; 29 March 2018
via United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 89th Session, 2016
"I. Introduction: 1. As less than 1% of the population of Rwanda and the smallest ethnic popul... more "I. Introduction: 1. As less than 1% of the population of Rwanda and the smallest ethnic population in Rwanda, the Indigenous Batwa People, one of the oldest surviving tribes in Africa and the oldest recorded inhabitants of the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa (later met by farmers and pastoralists), and whom Rwanda does not recognize as indigenous, are an extremely vulnerable people with endangered culture and lifeways. Estimates state that 30% of the Batwa in Rwanda were killed during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, making them the most-affected group in the country, proportionately. Yet, the Batwa were not formally recognized as victims of the genocide. Today, Batwa survival and continuation as an Indigenous People remains at-risk. The Batwa currently reside in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, as well around the world as migrants, asylum seekers and refugees...."
[With Recommendations]
Researched and written by India Reed Bowers, submitted by International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE) in collaboration with Association of Global Development of Batwa in Rwanda (ADBR) to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 89th Session / April-May 2016; 3 April 2016.
via GREVIO, Council of Europe, 2018
"...currently to-date the Sami Parliament and Swedish Government (branches, agencies, etc) enjoy ... more "...currently to-date the Sami Parliament and Swedish Government (branches, agencies, etc) enjoy a reciprocal and mutually-bound relationship as dual and funded governances of the Swedish State and Swedish Government, whilst neither have been held accountable for the negligence of domestic violence services in the Sami society in Sweden or the Sami Parliament’s responsibilities to safeguard the rights of women therein or otherwise.
Moreover, the precarious situation of immigrant women, and in particular ‘love immigrant’ women as unrecognized minorities (not considered ‘national minorities’), among other issues (and regardless of background, as one can understand that the author of this report is an American woman of predominantly European heritage, and still faced oppressions in Sweden and Sapmi that placed her at-risk as dependent on her “host” man), are crucial to understanding root causes of domestic violence in Sweden (and Sapmi).
Lastly, on cannot overlook the importance of intersectionality, despite Sweden’s refusal of the notion, for example, to UN CEDAW in its review of Sweden in 2016; intersectionality points us to some of the most vulnerable and at-risk persons in a society on the whole..."
Submitted by International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE)
On GREVIO (CoE monitoring body for the Istanbul Convention) and the Convention: "The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence is based on the understanding that violence against women is a form of gender-based violence that is committed against women because they are women. It is the obligation of the state to address it fully in all its forms and to take measures to prevent violence against women, protect its victims and prosecute the perpetrators. Failure to do so would make it the responsibility of the state. The convention leaves no doubt: there can be no real equality between women and men if women experience gender-based violence on a large-scale and state agencies and institutions turn a blind eye."
via the United Nations CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) Committee, 2016
"I. Introduction
1. Sweden creates a clean exterior image and product presentation regarding ad... more "I. Introduction
1. Sweden creates a clean exterior image and product presentation regarding adherence to women’s rights and the CEDAW Convention and human rights to the outside world, yet the reality lived for people and women within Sweden is very different, especially for but not limited to immigrant, Indigenous, refugee, foreign-born or foreign-born descent and all minority women.
2. There is a large gap between the presentable outlines of legislation, policy, funding and even gender-based work of (Stockholm- and South-Sweden concentrated) organizations of Sweden and the actual success of their functioning on the ground amongst the people and systems in the opinions of the women said to be served themselves, based on experiences of women in high-risk categories for abuse and domestic violence due to already existing in situations of intersectional discrimination in Sweden.
3. As an immigrant- and domestic-violence-victim-founded, Indigenous-Peoples/Rights-based, unfunded and voluntary non-governmental organization and network, IOSDE has keen insight into both silent and silenced truths in not only the international arena regarding women’s rights and violations therein, but in Sweden, its organizational home base. IOSDE stands firm that no policy, law, legislation, system, funding, reporting or otherwise can make up for the silencing of the victims themselves as the persons holding the solutions, ideas, keys, answers and concepts to a better today and tomorrow...."
Silence is Violence: A Shadow Report to UN CEDAW re Sweden, Submitted to the United Nations CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) Committee for its review of Sweden, 63rd Session, February 2016, by the International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE), 22 January 2016
Legal Briefs, co-authored by India Reed Bowers
India Reed Bowers, BA LLM, and Chief Caleen Sisk, Winnemem Wintu Tribe
Written submission for ... more India Reed Bowers, BA LLM, and Chief Caleen Sisk, Winnemem Wintu Tribe
Written submission for the “Half-day general discussion on the equal and inclusive representation of women in decision-making systems” on 22 February 2023, United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 84th session, 6 to 24 February 2023, Geneva
"We hold that it should be the Right of Indigenous Peoples, as self-governing Peoples per UN- and International Law, to, through their own leaderships, sign and ratify International Treaties and Conventions, including, significantly, CEDAW and other UN Human Rights Treaties, regardless as to whether or not the encompassing/colonizing Nation-State has done so or intends to; this, as a right to access to Decision-Making Processes and equal and inclusive representation in decision-making systems, especially for and by Indigenous and otherwise marginalized or victim-survivor women, as well as equality and accountability, both, for diverse leaderships and existences, and especially as access to equality and equity and decision-making for, by, and of Traditional Indigenous Women Leaders of their Communities, People(s) and Tribes.
[...]
We also hold that it is critical that the International Law makers, utilizers and managers, as well as other influencers, must recognize and respect that there are women like us who, our whole lives, have been working, solving, collaborating, loving, helping, collaborating, supporting, working unpaid but wholeheartedly and strongly, making change, demanding change, and doing so intersectionally and as solutions-based, together; whereby politics that seek to divide and erase us as positive solutions wholistically and already “doing the work” are not only ongoing facets of patriarchal and colonial, violent erasure of our labor, value(s) and existences, but also cater to those corrupted from any background or personhood willing to profit off of pretending like we and/or our works and ways and beings do not exist, that many of us are already living solutions.
[...]
Indigenous Peoples, and especially Traditional Women Leaders of their People, must be allowed to sign and ratify UN Treaties, including CEDAW. If not permitted or recognized to exist and be self-determining within and and in concerning structural political systems, to decide how to protect ourselves and define and develop ourselves as girls and women safely and with inclusion to our innermost beings, either as a(n Indigenous or otherwise) Peoples or (HRDS, LGBTQ+, collaborating/intersectional, etc) persons, as who we are, any of us, in the real world, and in-line with how we are really living and doing, as women, the gaps to commit violence against us all will continue to increase a thousand-fold."
Expert workshop on possible ways to enhance the participation of Indigenous Peoples in the work o... more Expert workshop on possible ways to enhance the participation of Indigenous Peoples in the work of the Human Rights Council, 21 – 24 November 2022, Room XXVI, Palais des Nations, Geneva; 24 November 2022 – Subject topic: “Recommendations” Submitted by India Reed Bowers, BA LLM, for and with Chief Caleen Sisk and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe
"The Winnemem Wintu are an Indigenous People within what is currently named the United States. The Winnemem Wintu are a federally(ie State)-unrecognized, or federally-non-recognized / federally-non-acknowledged, Indigenous People that is led traditionally, matriarchal and matrilineal, by Chief Caleen Sisk.
The total Winnemem Wintu tribal membership hovers around 126, compared to its estimated peak of 14,000. Winnemem Wintu people’s identity and cultural continuity is that of the currently- namedCalifornia’s first Indigenous People of the Buliyum Puyuuk (Mount Shasta) and Winnemem Waywaket (McCloud River) watershed. Most of the Winnemem Wintu’s traditional river and sacred sites and villages are now submerged under the McCloud Reservoir and the Shasta Reservoir, and the sacred salmon no longer breed upstream of Shasta Dam. In the face of these hardships, the Winnemem Wintu continue to strive to preserve Winnemem native language, practice Winnemem religion and traditional healing methods, and protect the rights of salmon, defend Rights to the few remaining sacred sites, ceremonial places, villages and burial grounds from further encroachment.
The status of being unrecognized is a serious form of legal genocide. At the same time, recognition by the USA is not conducive to retaining our tribal traditions and culture that is beneficial to the tribe’s lands and water and sacred places- it ignores and fails to protect the tribal purpose to retain our own Indigenous Knowledge, and it sifts out Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge in exchange for an “economy system”, creating a major loss many people in those systems don’t even see happening. The Winnemem have continuously faced with peaceful resistance and traditional lifeways the discriminatory, paternalistic, colonizing and genocidal nature of the top-down and controlling designs of the State’s restructuring of tribes’ systems for federal recognition. Certainly, all around the world, Indigenous women are unrecognized and underrepresented. There are far more unrecognized and unrepresented Indigenous Peoples than is documented, and if one includes persons disenrolled from, for example, internalized State recognition systems, the number much further increases.
[...]
The Winnemem Wintu welcome the development of the United Nations to include self-governing Indigenous Peoples and within the diverse and foundational scope and rights of self-determination in accordance with the founding Charter of the UN and its subsidiary bodies; “...self-determination is not only the fundamental right acting as the backbone of all of other rights enshrined within the UNDRIP and the rights of Indigenous Peoples but also the UN Charter itself under Article 1(2), “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples...””
The Winnemem Wintu are in agreement with the representatives at this workshop that it is long overdue that Indigenous Peoples have our own seats at the United Nations, and not based on the determination of the very systems and States that brutally colonized our territories, waters, ecosystems, and existences. It is imperative that, collectively as Indigenous Peoples, we have Indigenous regulations for representation and with mechanisms for fair participation..."
Winnemem Wintu Tribe Statement and submission to the Third Informal Interactive Hearing on Enhanc... more Winnemem Wintu Tribe Statement and submission to the Third Informal Interactive Hearing on Enhanced Participation of Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations, convened by the President of the 77th session of the General Assembly H.E. Csaba Kőrösi, 3-6pm, Thursday April 20th, 2023, United Nations, NY, Speaker: Chief Caleen Sisk; Drafted and edited by India Reed Bowers and Chief Caleen Sisk, containing excerpts from the parallel written and spoken submissions for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe to the “Expert Workshop on possible ways to enhance the participation of Indigenous Peoples in the work of the Human Rights Council” 21-24 November 2022 in Geneva.
"...Indigenous Peoples should have status equal and equitable to States at the UN in all areas, including the rights to draft, negotiate and ratify Human Rights Treaties and participate in the General Assembly as Members or Permanent Observers of the UN. We should not have to undergo changing our traditional governance and ways to be considered "recognized" by States or otherwise. Additionally, we encourage the use of the recent Human Rights Council Resolution 48(7) on Negative impacts of the legacies of colonialism.
We look forward to working with the global community with access to seats of equality and equity alongside other Indigenous Governances and the representatives of States, to improve humanity and save Mother Earth...."
via United Nations Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 88th Session, 2015
Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group. Shadow Report for the United Nations Convention on the Elimination... more Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group. Shadow Report for the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) Committee, 88th Session: November 2015, Review of the Holy See.
The Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group Shadow Report in its entirety makes the case for, amongst other things, the need for a Truth Commission regarding the Holy See and the Inter Caetera and the Apache-Ndé-Nneé and Indigenous Peoples, reparations and changes in related and resulting laws and policies regarding Indigenous territories and sovereignty therein, and a legally-formal and public rescinding by the Holy See of the Inter Caetera and its legal, political, spiritual and territorial legacies. The past and ongoing effects, as exhibited in the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group Shadow Report, of crimes against humanity and genocide, including cultural genocide, ethnocide, ecocide, and environmental racism as-experienced by the Apache-Ndé-Nneé and that result from the legacy of the Inter Caetera must be addressed legally and formally, and with proper and Indigenous FPIC-based redress and remedy, including but not limited to in the context of the option of a full and formal Truth Commission. Formal and direct legal codification must be made that denounces and rescinds all subsequent and related regional, national and international legal decisions, treaties and codifications based on and developed from the inherent racism against Indigenous Peoples of the Inter Caetera.
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CERD/Shared%20Documents/VAT/INT_CERD_NGO_VAT_22151_E.pdf
via the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) 89th Session, 2016
"CERD Article 5 with special attention to Art. 5(a)7 Access to Justice:
The Apache-Ndé-Nneé Wor... more "CERD Article 5 with special attention to Art. 5(a)7 Access to Justice:
The Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group presents this Alternative Report to address the situation of discrimination surrounding and resulting from the lack of redress for and ongoing legacy of Spain’s involvement in the colonization of the Apache-Ndé-Nneé People, territories, peoples, lifeways, and more, through Spain’s various forms of slavery, subjugation, abuse, murder, domination, dividing, conquering, theft and generations-long damage against the Apache-Ndé People therein..."
Alternative Report for the CERD Review of Spain submitted by the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) 89th Session / April-May 2016
3 April 2016
U.N. CERD 88th Session, 2015
Presented in the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group Shadow Report, including its Annex, is a
collectiv... more Presented in the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group Shadow Report, including its Annex, is a
collective demand to no longer be forced to live the lies and the spiritual, moral, juridical, territorial,
political and social discrimination of the Church, the Holy See, and its primary influences on colonialism,
land-grabbing, genocide, State- and Kingdom-building, slavery, and theft and torture that has been
brutalized on the backs of the Indigenous Peoples of the world and the ‘Americas’, including the Apache-
Ndé-Nneé, and their traditional lives, lifeways, worldviews and territories. Current situations of suffering of
the Apache-Ndé-Nneé are tied to the lack of full and just recognition of the identity, sovereignty, and the
territorial and cultural integrity of Apache-Ndé-Nneé Peoples, a direct result of the legacy of discrimination
against Indigenous Peoples contained within the Inter Caetera (Annex 1) and lack of access to justice
therein.3 As the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) sates,
“The pre-emptory norm of non-discrimination, a fundamental pillar of international human rights law,
requires that indigenous peoples have access to justice on an equal basis to the general population.”4 As
exhibited by the individual papers, testimonials and materials in the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group
Shadow Report, situations and realities of extreme discrimination, including but not limited to legal,
political, territorial and social discrimination persist due to the lack of redress and remedy regarding the
legacy of the Holy See’s Inter Caetera.5
UN CERD 89th Session, 2016
The Apache Ndé Nneé Working Group is a collaborative of Apache peoples and non-Apache friends who... more The Apache Ndé Nneé Working Group is a collaborative of Apache peoples and non-Apache friends who
have unified our expertise in the fields of culture, law, history, philosophy, arts, economics, politics, health,
social welfare, education, spirituality, science, and much more. We endeavor to provide the truth and use
our expertise to redress for past and ongoing occurring grievances that Apaches have faced historically and
continue to face on a daily basis. We utilize the United Nations and international treaty bodies and
mechanisms to promote the specific and general welfare and well-being of the Peoples in order to bring
about harmony and balance within our own beings and belonging. We are re-establishing our permanent
roles as Apache Ndé Nneé in the international political arena, in accordance with our understanding of
Apache Ndé Nneé truth, laws, oral tradition, oral history, historical memory, inter-generational knowledge
and community documentation and archiving systems. The Apache Ndé Nneé system of analyzing
colonialism and colonial power has been under development since first contact, post 1492. The Apache
Ndé Nneé Working Group exercise Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty to enable justice for all
Ndé Nneé peoples and future generations to come.
This is an emergent Apache Ndé Nneé framework to establish new justice, peace, and redress processes.
The present utilization of the United Nations’ systems is one of diverse approaches to address and receive
full redress and justice for all The People.
Papers by India Reed Bowers
"There has been much documentation at the United Nations of violations of the rights of indigenou... more "There has been much documentation at the United Nations of violations of the rights of indigenous peoples by member States of the UN. However, there is a lack of documentation in regards to the violations of indigenous rights by the United Nations itself, save for the turning away of Indigenous leaders by the League of Nations and then by the young United Nations. Given that the UN is a regime whose projected intentions are human rights, equality, peace, self-determination and other such goals for humanity worldwide, it seems fitting to raise issue with the fact that the majority of indigenous peoples continue to remain politically sidelined within the Human Rights regime, as they continue to be under (neo-)colonial rule by the member States encompassing them. Interestingly, few laypersons know that decolonization was a key element in the formation and intention of the United Nations, and that the Decolonization Committee (advised by the UN Department of Political Affairs...) and Decolonization Unit, and other related UN decolonization organs and initiatives remain active to this day. In addition, on the United Nations website page titled ‘Global Issues’..., Decolonization is expressed as one of the primary issues of the world by the UN itself. So why don’t we, as laypersons, hear about decolonization along with other primary world UN-identified issues actively discussed in the media such as AIDS, De-mining, Democracy, Development, Family, Food, Health, Peace and Security, Terrorism, Water, etc? Decolonizing within the context of the United Nations offers multiple pathways to becoming self-determining peoples for the entities undergoing the process, including the option of total independence and eventual member status at the UN, obtaining voting rights and full membership benefits. The United Nations itself proudly promotes the fact that its dramatic numeric increase in Membership since its inception has been the result of the UN decolonization process.
So how is it that indigenous nations, despite being recognized by their colonizers as nations to have made (and broken) treaties with, or to address the leaders of, and so on, have not been included in the UN Decolonization process? For this paper I will conduct a preliminary investigation into the politics of indigenous peoples’ participation at the UN, or lack thereof, and why their exclusion from the decolonization process is a root cause and perpetuating factor of the political sidelining, or apartheid even (although I will not attempt to prove apartheid in this paper, but will leave that for a later date), of indigenous peoples within the Human Rights Regime of the United Nations. In the footnotes of this paper the reader will find in-depth evidence, discussions and debates concerning the issues presented.
[...] In regards to issues concerning Indigenous Nations and their rights to address these issues on an international platform, it would seem that the UNPFII was meant to provide an alternative to decolonization and/or member State status, as it is a forum where Indigenous leaders meet once a year to discuss the issues that affect their constituencies and nations. However, within the current structure of the UNPFII only eight members are nominated by indigenous organizations while the other eight are nominated by member States of the UN. Thus, while not the General Assembly of the UN, even in the space provided for Indigenous representatives at the UN, member States have a 50% political hold on who the decision-makers are... and this all under the umbrella of ECOSOC, which can hardly equate to the political and judicial benefits of being at the table equal to UN member States as self-determining Nations. Given the clear self-identification and shared history of indigenous peoples, pre-colonialism, as self-governing and often treaty- making nations (at the onset of colonialism, with invading non-indigenous nations), why did application of the United Nations General Assembly resolution 1541, the Declaration On The Granting Of Independence To Colonial Countries And Peoples adopted in New York, 14 December 1960, exclude indigenous peoples and their territories?
[...] What are the consequences of not identifying indigenous nations as peoples with the right to decolonize (by method and/or goal of choice, within the scope UN Decolonizing resolution 1541) at the international UN level?
[...] Not only was the United Nations formed, seemingly, to create world peace, but perhaps it was also a way to secure US and European political territorial power internationally in the context of international relations. If Indigenous Nations were to be treated equally under the international regime, then or now, the most powerful nation States of the world would potentially (but not necessarily) have to lose much of their territorial “integrity” (as it is called by Western law) and, in addition, many of their military bases (as many nation State military bases are indigenous lands without permission of the indigenous nations), strategic strongholds via genocidal colonial corporatism (such as the US-Indonesia West Papua stronghold via Freeport mining, ensuring the US ties to Indonesia’s military backing in a location of the world between the US and Asia/Russia), in addition to the weaponry of ignorance of member State citizens against the true rights of indigenous peoples as Nations.
[...] United Nations declarations addressing Decolonization could easily be seen to have the capacity to address indigenous territories and peoples. Looking beyond this factor, why do member states declare the rights of some peoples to decolonize?
[...] From death threats and murder, to bribery, torture, enforced internalization of fear, militarization and disappearance, and imprisonment, even to the disallowing of visas or entry into a powerful member State for an international meeting, indigenous peoples who would argue for legal, UN-decolonization-based secession, decolonization in any other official form under the UN human rights regime, and/or political equality at the international level for all indigenous nations or their own nation, all experience these major-player member state bullying tactics. As well many of their allies experience these tactics (I myself have many stories of my own in regards to this). Such experiences have brought about NGOs which specifically address the rights of human rights defenders, from newer organizations such as Front Line Defenders to protection from older organizations such as Amnesty International. At the same time, as I mentioned in the Introduction, indigenous peoples are still not documented as being sidelined politically/by voice within the United Nations by the UN itself.
[...] The colonial powers’ desired assimilation of indigenous peoples will not happen. The movement for self-determined rights has always been too strong to quash. This is the very reason as to why the UN Charter, Declaration of Human Rights and decolonization existed in the first place, to allow for such freedoms... or so they state from a legal perspective. Whether or not it was intended that these functions would truly bring into existence self-determination by all peoples, self-determination is what will happen, because peoples and nations demand it. Declarations and resolutions submitted to the international human rights regime by indigenous groups have increasingly been in the cultural language and perceptions true to self-determining indigenous peoples and nations, even if still on the sidelines of the UN mechanisms at large.
[...] If anything can be said about regimes it is that they are not static. Indigenous peoples and their allies have suffered and worked and lost their lives and quality of life for many years to stop indigenous genocide and Member State colonialism, and to gain the rights spelled out in the UN Charter and Declaration of Human Rights in the UN system and Human Rights regime itself. The time has come for the Human Rights regime and United Nations to no longer be a political weapon of the large colonial member states and international powers.
[...] Indigenous peoples have been practicing human rights for centuries, and the regime will be all the richer, perhaps not in gold but in achieving its true intentions, when indigenous peoples are fully included in Human Rights International Relations. Indigenous peoples may or may not hold the key to true righteousness any more than other peoples or nations at the end of the day, but we can be sure that equality and diversity, when respected simultaneously by all of humanity- where every group of peoples is seen for its beneficial contribution to the whole, and not just as a sidelined, colonized or otherwise degraded entity- does."
See also (subsequent publication): https://www.academia.edu/16116625/Indigenous_Decolonization_and_United_Nations_Membership_Indigenous_Peoples_and_the_Fundamental_Right_to_Self_Determination
Uploads
Publication by India Reed Bowers
See also (background paper): https://www.academia.edu/101121793/Indigenous_Peoples_Decolonization_and_Self_Determination_and_the_Human_Rights_Regime_in_International_Relations
...
Distributed in:
INDIGENOUS NATIONS & PEOPLES LAW eJOURNAL, Vol. 9, No. 10: Mar 29, 2013, Center for Indigenous Law, Governance and Citizenship, Syracuse University College of Law
PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW eJOURNAL, Vol. 8, No. 45: Apr 9, 2013, ALAN SYKES, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Stanford University - Law School
HUMAN RIGHTS & THE GLOBAL ECONOMY eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 30: Mar 20, 2013, MARTHA F. DAVIS, EDITOR, Associate Dean, Professor of Law and Co-Director, Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy, Northeastern University - School of Law, RASHMI DYAL-CHAND, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Northeastern University - School of Law, WENDY E. PARMET, EDITOR, George J. and Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished University Professor of Law, Northeastern University - School of Law
LAW & CULTURE eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 19: Mar 26, 2013, BRUCE L. HAY, EDITOR
Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, REVA B. SIEGEL, EDITOR, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law, Yale University - Law School , University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law
LAW, NORMS & INFORMAL ORDER eJOURNAL, Vol. 9, No. 12: Mar 21, 2013, RICHARD H. MCADAMS, EDITOR, Bernard D. Meltzer Professor, University of Chicago Law School
LAW & SOCIETY: INTERNATIONAL & COMPARATIVE LAW eJOURNAL, Sponsored by: Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Vol. 8, No. 54: Mar 22, 2013, CHRISTIANA OCHOA, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW eJOURNAL, Vol. 8, No. 45: Apr 9, 2013, ALAN SYKES, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Stanford University - Law School
CONFLICT STUDIES eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 38: Aug 21, 2013, KELLY M. KADERA, EDITOR
Associate Professor, University of Iowa - Department of Political Science, BRIAN H. LAI, EDITOR, Associate Professor, University of Iowa - Department of Political Science
POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS: INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 46: Mar 18, 2013, DAVID A. LAKE, EDITOR, Professor, UC San Diego
Social Responsibility of Business eJournals: Vol. 2, No. 159: 27 Nov 2013, LAW, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS & CSR eJOURNAL, EDITOR, Timothy M. Devinney, Professor of International Business University of Manchester - Alliance Manchester Business School
Legal Briefs, Authored by India Reed Bowers
New York, 20 April - 1 May 2015
Item 5: Half-day discussion on the expert group meeting on the theme “Dialogue on an optional protocol to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”
28 April 2015
Statement by India Reed Bowers for International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE)
IOSDE honors the traditional territories of the Lenape Nation, Onondaga Peoples and all Indigenous Peoples here today.
IOSDE is concerned that over the many years of submissions and interventions at the UNPFII from Indigenous Peoples concerning mass atrocities against their Peoples, families and communities and thus humanity through State- and business-initiated torture, murder, militarization, criminalization and systematic devastation the Permanent Forum and UN system still refer to such horrors as human rights violations only. The concern is that Indigenous victims’ submissions are not being outwardly identified as reporting atrocities also in the context of international crimes and violations of international criminal law from a legal and/or victim-based advocacy perspective and analysis.
Yes, the United Nations is a Human Rights institution- however, the UN was founded with the primary goal and commitment of the world community stop genocide from ever happening again after the holocaust and WW2. In the context of Indigenous Peoples, is the UN actually doing this, and can we have this discussion if we are going to talk about a rights violation mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and the UNDRIP? What is the plan for how a UNDRIP complaint or review mechanism will address serious crimes against humanity and other crimes against peoples such as genocide, such as those we hear testimonials of here every year at the UNPFII, if reporting to the Human Rights Council? And in such a mechanism, where will claims of right to decolonize as a form of self- determination go within the UN system? ...
Sápmi is the traditional territory of the Sami People currently politically and territorially divided by the borders of the Nation-States of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. In preparation for Ms. Tauli-Corpuz’s visit, this Report provides some follow-up and additional information concerning both new developments and issues addressed and not addressed in conjunction with the previous visit (2010) to Sápmi and Sweden of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Mr. James Anaya, and his concluding Report to the Human Rights Council of the status of the Sami People in Sweden, Finland and Norway produced in 2011 . In addition to any other materials and submissions she receives from other institutions, groups and persons, Ms. Tauli-Corpuz will receive in-person input regarding the status of the Sami People during her visit to Sápmi in late August 2015 during pre-arranged, interactive dialogues with State and Sami representatives and speakers as well as local visits to specific Sami areas with a highlighting of specific issues the Sami People are facing in the context of Indigenous Rights, among other activities..."
https://www.sametinget.se/92639
1. Sweden has for many years been formally criticized for racism, discrimination and exclusivity faced by immigrants and persons of immigrant family origin within the State. Sweden’s policies and systems, but even more importantly the social atmosphere lived-in daily, continue to condone an assimilationist mentality, versus integration as a support to a pro-positive, pro-active multiculturalism. Assimilation-based approaches to law and policy as well as systems designs putn on-majority women and those persons facing intersectional discriminations, especially, at risk. Many in Swedish society continue to debate to this day if multiculturalism itself is a good thing or something Sweden should engage in at all. This debate (or silence and assimilationist approaches) occurs while all persons in Sweden considered to be ‘non-nationals’, ‘foreign-born nationals’, and even ‘national minorities’ (a Sweden-specific category of State identity, to be discussed later)and other non-majority persons are forced to wait in the wings to be accepted at some multicultural point in the future of Sweden as having own cultures, new contributions to be credited and paid for, and adding positive diversity to decision-making, influence, rights, analyses and voices. This waiting includes blockages in the forms of access to diversely expertise-based employment, diversity as self-representation as non-majority on issues, platforms, and otherwise,and access to non-discriminatory human-rights-based and criminal justice implementations and mechanisms as victims.
2.This reality of intersectional discrimination severely affects women in Sweden, especially, who are already at a disadvantage as women, compounded by discrimination based on ethnic or national origin or race. However, Sweden has formally and strictly sated that it does not apply an intersectional approach in its action plans against discrimination.3Hence, when Sweden and its organizations and systems continue to lobby and rally together to create an appearance to the outside world as strong and superior in women’s and human rights, in general, or by certain designs, it is exactly the women and others facing intersectional discrimination in real time who suffer most..."
Alternative Report for the CERD Review of Sweden, Submitted by International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE) to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 95th Session / April-May 2018; 29 March 2018
[With Recommendations]
Researched and written by India Reed Bowers, submitted by International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE) in collaboration with Association of Global Development of Batwa in Rwanda (ADBR) to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 89th Session / April-May 2016; 3 April 2016.
Moreover, the precarious situation of immigrant women, and in particular ‘love immigrant’ women as unrecognized minorities (not considered ‘national minorities’), among other issues (and regardless of background, as one can understand that the author of this report is an American woman of predominantly European heritage, and still faced oppressions in Sweden and Sapmi that placed her at-risk as dependent on her “host” man), are crucial to understanding root causes of domestic violence in Sweden (and Sapmi).
Lastly, on cannot overlook the importance of intersectionality, despite Sweden’s refusal of the notion, for example, to UN CEDAW in its review of Sweden in 2016; intersectionality points us to some of the most vulnerable and at-risk persons in a society on the whole..."
Submitted by International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE)
On GREVIO (CoE monitoring body for the Istanbul Convention) and the Convention: "The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence is based on the understanding that violence against women is a form of gender-based violence that is committed against women because they are women. It is the obligation of the state to address it fully in all its forms and to take measures to prevent violence against women, protect its victims and prosecute the perpetrators. Failure to do so would make it the responsibility of the state. The convention leaves no doubt: there can be no real equality between women and men if women experience gender-based violence on a large-scale and state agencies and institutions turn a blind eye."
1. Sweden creates a clean exterior image and product presentation regarding adherence to women’s rights and the CEDAW Convention and human rights to the outside world, yet the reality lived for people and women within Sweden is very different, especially for but not limited to immigrant, Indigenous, refugee, foreign-born or foreign-born descent and all minority women.
2. There is a large gap between the presentable outlines of legislation, policy, funding and even gender-based work of (Stockholm- and South-Sweden concentrated) organizations of Sweden and the actual success of their functioning on the ground amongst the people and systems in the opinions of the women said to be served themselves, based on experiences of women in high-risk categories for abuse and domestic violence due to already existing in situations of intersectional discrimination in Sweden.
3. As an immigrant- and domestic-violence-victim-founded, Indigenous-Peoples/Rights-based, unfunded and voluntary non-governmental organization and network, IOSDE has keen insight into both silent and silenced truths in not only the international arena regarding women’s rights and violations therein, but in Sweden, its organizational home base. IOSDE stands firm that no policy, law, legislation, system, funding, reporting or otherwise can make up for the silencing of the victims themselves as the persons holding the solutions, ideas, keys, answers and concepts to a better today and tomorrow...."
Silence is Violence: A Shadow Report to UN CEDAW re Sweden, Submitted to the United Nations CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) Committee for its review of Sweden, 63rd Session, February 2016, by the International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE), 22 January 2016
Legal Briefs, co-authored by India Reed Bowers
Written submission for the “Half-day general discussion on the equal and inclusive representation of women in decision-making systems” on 22 February 2023, United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 84th session, 6 to 24 February 2023, Geneva
"We hold that it should be the Right of Indigenous Peoples, as self-governing Peoples per UN- and International Law, to, through their own leaderships, sign and ratify International Treaties and Conventions, including, significantly, CEDAW and other UN Human Rights Treaties, regardless as to whether or not the encompassing/colonizing Nation-State has done so or intends to; this, as a right to access to Decision-Making Processes and equal and inclusive representation in decision-making systems, especially for and by Indigenous and otherwise marginalized or victim-survivor women, as well as equality and accountability, both, for diverse leaderships and existences, and especially as access to equality and equity and decision-making for, by, and of Traditional Indigenous Women Leaders of their Communities, People(s) and Tribes.
[...]
We also hold that it is critical that the International Law makers, utilizers and managers, as well as other influencers, must recognize and respect that there are women like us who, our whole lives, have been working, solving, collaborating, loving, helping, collaborating, supporting, working unpaid but wholeheartedly and strongly, making change, demanding change, and doing so intersectionally and as solutions-based, together; whereby politics that seek to divide and erase us as positive solutions wholistically and already “doing the work” are not only ongoing facets of patriarchal and colonial, violent erasure of our labor, value(s) and existences, but also cater to those corrupted from any background or personhood willing to profit off of pretending like we and/or our works and ways and beings do not exist, that many of us are already living solutions.
[...]
Indigenous Peoples, and especially Traditional Women Leaders of their People, must be allowed to sign and ratify UN Treaties, including CEDAW. If not permitted or recognized to exist and be self-determining within and and in concerning structural political systems, to decide how to protect ourselves and define and develop ourselves as girls and women safely and with inclusion to our innermost beings, either as a(n Indigenous or otherwise) Peoples or (HRDS, LGBTQ+, collaborating/intersectional, etc) persons, as who we are, any of us, in the real world, and in-line with how we are really living and doing, as women, the gaps to commit violence against us all will continue to increase a thousand-fold."
"The Winnemem Wintu are an Indigenous People within what is currently named the United States. The Winnemem Wintu are a federally(ie State)-unrecognized, or federally-non-recognized / federally-non-acknowledged, Indigenous People that is led traditionally, matriarchal and matrilineal, by Chief Caleen Sisk.
The total Winnemem Wintu tribal membership hovers around 126, compared to its estimated peak of 14,000. Winnemem Wintu people’s identity and cultural continuity is that of the currently- namedCalifornia’s first Indigenous People of the Buliyum Puyuuk (Mount Shasta) and Winnemem Waywaket (McCloud River) watershed. Most of the Winnemem Wintu’s traditional river and sacred sites and villages are now submerged under the McCloud Reservoir and the Shasta Reservoir, and the sacred salmon no longer breed upstream of Shasta Dam. In the face of these hardships, the Winnemem Wintu continue to strive to preserve Winnemem native language, practice Winnemem religion and traditional healing methods, and protect the rights of salmon, defend Rights to the few remaining sacred sites, ceremonial places, villages and burial grounds from further encroachment.
The status of being unrecognized is a serious form of legal genocide. At the same time, recognition by the USA is not conducive to retaining our tribal traditions and culture that is beneficial to the tribe’s lands and water and sacred places- it ignores and fails to protect the tribal purpose to retain our own Indigenous Knowledge, and it sifts out Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge in exchange for an “economy system”, creating a major loss many people in those systems don’t even see happening. The Winnemem have continuously faced with peaceful resistance and traditional lifeways the discriminatory, paternalistic, colonizing and genocidal nature of the top-down and controlling designs of the State’s restructuring of tribes’ systems for federal recognition. Certainly, all around the world, Indigenous women are unrecognized and underrepresented. There are far more unrecognized and unrepresented Indigenous Peoples than is documented, and if one includes persons disenrolled from, for example, internalized State recognition systems, the number much further increases.
[...]
The Winnemem Wintu welcome the development of the United Nations to include self-governing Indigenous Peoples and within the diverse and foundational scope and rights of self-determination in accordance with the founding Charter of the UN and its subsidiary bodies; “...self-determination is not only the fundamental right acting as the backbone of all of other rights enshrined within the UNDRIP and the rights of Indigenous Peoples but also the UN Charter itself under Article 1(2), “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples...””
The Winnemem Wintu are in agreement with the representatives at this workshop that it is long overdue that Indigenous Peoples have our own seats at the United Nations, and not based on the determination of the very systems and States that brutally colonized our territories, waters, ecosystems, and existences. It is imperative that, collectively as Indigenous Peoples, we have Indigenous regulations for representation and with mechanisms for fair participation..."
"...Indigenous Peoples should have status equal and equitable to States at the UN in all areas, including the rights to draft, negotiate and ratify Human Rights Treaties and participate in the General Assembly as Members or Permanent Observers of the UN. We should not have to undergo changing our traditional governance and ways to be considered "recognized" by States or otherwise. Additionally, we encourage the use of the recent Human Rights Council Resolution 48(7) on Negative impacts of the legacies of colonialism.
We look forward to working with the global community with access to seats of equality and equity alongside other Indigenous Governances and the representatives of States, to improve humanity and save Mother Earth...."
The Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group Shadow Report in its entirety makes the case for, amongst other things, the need for a Truth Commission regarding the Holy See and the Inter Caetera and the Apache-Ndé-Nneé and Indigenous Peoples, reparations and changes in related and resulting laws and policies regarding Indigenous territories and sovereignty therein, and a legally-formal and public rescinding by the Holy See of the Inter Caetera and its legal, political, spiritual and territorial legacies. The past and ongoing effects, as exhibited in the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group Shadow Report, of crimes against humanity and genocide, including cultural genocide, ethnocide, ecocide, and environmental racism as-experienced by the Apache-Ndé-Nneé and that result from the legacy of the Inter Caetera must be addressed legally and formally, and with proper and Indigenous FPIC-based redress and remedy, including but not limited to in the context of the option of a full and formal Truth Commission. Formal and direct legal codification must be made that denounces and rescinds all subsequent and related regional, national and international legal decisions, treaties and codifications based on and developed from the inherent racism against Indigenous Peoples of the Inter Caetera.
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CERD/Shared%20Documents/VAT/INT_CERD_NGO_VAT_22151_E.pdf
The Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group presents this Alternative Report to address the situation of discrimination surrounding and resulting from the lack of redress for and ongoing legacy of Spain’s involvement in the colonization of the Apache-Ndé-Nneé People, territories, peoples, lifeways, and more, through Spain’s various forms of slavery, subjugation, abuse, murder, domination, dividing, conquering, theft and generations-long damage against the Apache-Ndé People therein..."
Alternative Report for the CERD Review of Spain submitted by the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) 89th Session / April-May 2016
3 April 2016
collective demand to no longer be forced to live the lies and the spiritual, moral, juridical, territorial,
political and social discrimination of the Church, the Holy See, and its primary influences on colonialism,
land-grabbing, genocide, State- and Kingdom-building, slavery, and theft and torture that has been
brutalized on the backs of the Indigenous Peoples of the world and the ‘Americas’, including the Apache-
Ndé-Nneé, and their traditional lives, lifeways, worldviews and territories. Current situations of suffering of
the Apache-Ndé-Nneé are tied to the lack of full and just recognition of the identity, sovereignty, and the
territorial and cultural integrity of Apache-Ndé-Nneé Peoples, a direct result of the legacy of discrimination
against Indigenous Peoples contained within the Inter Caetera (Annex 1) and lack of access to justice
therein.3 As the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) sates,
“The pre-emptory norm of non-discrimination, a fundamental pillar of international human rights law,
requires that indigenous peoples have access to justice on an equal basis to the general population.”4 As
exhibited by the individual papers, testimonials and materials in the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group
Shadow Report, situations and realities of extreme discrimination, including but not limited to legal,
political, territorial and social discrimination persist due to the lack of redress and remedy regarding the
legacy of the Holy See’s Inter Caetera.5
have unified our expertise in the fields of culture, law, history, philosophy, arts, economics, politics, health,
social welfare, education, spirituality, science, and much more. We endeavor to provide the truth and use
our expertise to redress for past and ongoing occurring grievances that Apaches have faced historically and
continue to face on a daily basis. We utilize the United Nations and international treaty bodies and
mechanisms to promote the specific and general welfare and well-being of the Peoples in order to bring
about harmony and balance within our own beings and belonging. We are re-establishing our permanent
roles as Apache Ndé Nneé in the international political arena, in accordance with our understanding of
Apache Ndé Nneé truth, laws, oral tradition, oral history, historical memory, inter-generational knowledge
and community documentation and archiving systems. The Apache Ndé Nneé system of analyzing
colonialism and colonial power has been under development since first contact, post 1492. The Apache
Ndé Nneé Working Group exercise Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty to enable justice for all
Ndé Nneé peoples and future generations to come.
This is an emergent Apache Ndé Nneé framework to establish new justice, peace, and redress processes.
The present utilization of the United Nations’ systems is one of diverse approaches to address and receive
full redress and justice for all The People.
Papers by India Reed Bowers
So how is it that indigenous nations, despite being recognized by their colonizers as nations to have made (and broken) treaties with, or to address the leaders of, and so on, have not been included in the UN Decolonization process? For this paper I will conduct a preliminary investigation into the politics of indigenous peoples’ participation at the UN, or lack thereof, and why their exclusion from the decolonization process is a root cause and perpetuating factor of the political sidelining, or apartheid even (although I will not attempt to prove apartheid in this paper, but will leave that for a later date), of indigenous peoples within the Human Rights Regime of the United Nations. In the footnotes of this paper the reader will find in-depth evidence, discussions and debates concerning the issues presented.
[...] In regards to issues concerning Indigenous Nations and their rights to address these issues on an international platform, it would seem that the UNPFII was meant to provide an alternative to decolonization and/or member State status, as it is a forum where Indigenous leaders meet once a year to discuss the issues that affect their constituencies and nations. However, within the current structure of the UNPFII only eight members are nominated by indigenous organizations while the other eight are nominated by member States of the UN. Thus, while not the General Assembly of the UN, even in the space provided for Indigenous representatives at the UN, member States have a 50% political hold on who the decision-makers are... and this all under the umbrella of ECOSOC, which can hardly equate to the political and judicial benefits of being at the table equal to UN member States as self-determining Nations. Given the clear self-identification and shared history of indigenous peoples, pre-colonialism, as self-governing and often treaty- making nations (at the onset of colonialism, with invading non-indigenous nations), why did application of the United Nations General Assembly resolution 1541, the Declaration On The Granting Of Independence To Colonial Countries And Peoples adopted in New York, 14 December 1960, exclude indigenous peoples and their territories?
[...] What are the consequences of not identifying indigenous nations as peoples with the right to decolonize (by method and/or goal of choice, within the scope UN Decolonizing resolution 1541) at the international UN level?
[...] Not only was the United Nations formed, seemingly, to create world peace, but perhaps it was also a way to secure US and European political territorial power internationally in the context of international relations. If Indigenous Nations were to be treated equally under the international regime, then or now, the most powerful nation States of the world would potentially (but not necessarily) have to lose much of their territorial “integrity” (as it is called by Western law) and, in addition, many of their military bases (as many nation State military bases are indigenous lands without permission of the indigenous nations), strategic strongholds via genocidal colonial corporatism (such as the US-Indonesia West Papua stronghold via Freeport mining, ensuring the US ties to Indonesia’s military backing in a location of the world between the US and Asia/Russia), in addition to the weaponry of ignorance of member State citizens against the true rights of indigenous peoples as Nations.
[...] United Nations declarations addressing Decolonization could easily be seen to have the capacity to address indigenous territories and peoples. Looking beyond this factor, why do member states declare the rights of some peoples to decolonize?
[...] From death threats and murder, to bribery, torture, enforced internalization of fear, militarization and disappearance, and imprisonment, even to the disallowing of visas or entry into a powerful member State for an international meeting, indigenous peoples who would argue for legal, UN-decolonization-based secession, decolonization in any other official form under the UN human rights regime, and/or political equality at the international level for all indigenous nations or their own nation, all experience these major-player member state bullying tactics. As well many of their allies experience these tactics (I myself have many stories of my own in regards to this). Such experiences have brought about NGOs which specifically address the rights of human rights defenders, from newer organizations such as Front Line Defenders to protection from older organizations such as Amnesty International. At the same time, as I mentioned in the Introduction, indigenous peoples are still not documented as being sidelined politically/by voice within the United Nations by the UN itself.
[...] The colonial powers’ desired assimilation of indigenous peoples will not happen. The movement for self-determined rights has always been too strong to quash. This is the very reason as to why the UN Charter, Declaration of Human Rights and decolonization existed in the first place, to allow for such freedoms... or so they state from a legal perspective. Whether or not it was intended that these functions would truly bring into existence self-determination by all peoples, self-determination is what will happen, because peoples and nations demand it. Declarations and resolutions submitted to the international human rights regime by indigenous groups have increasingly been in the cultural language and perceptions true to self-determining indigenous peoples and nations, even if still on the sidelines of the UN mechanisms at large.
[...] If anything can be said about regimes it is that they are not static. Indigenous peoples and their allies have suffered and worked and lost their lives and quality of life for many years to stop indigenous genocide and Member State colonialism, and to gain the rights spelled out in the UN Charter and Declaration of Human Rights in the UN system and Human Rights regime itself. The time has come for the Human Rights regime and United Nations to no longer be a political weapon of the large colonial member states and international powers.
[...] Indigenous peoples have been practicing human rights for centuries, and the regime will be all the richer, perhaps not in gold but in achieving its true intentions, when indigenous peoples are fully included in Human Rights International Relations. Indigenous peoples may or may not hold the key to true righteousness any more than other peoples or nations at the end of the day, but we can be sure that equality and diversity, when respected simultaneously by all of humanity- where every group of peoples is seen for its beneficial contribution to the whole, and not just as a sidelined, colonized or otherwise degraded entity- does."
See also (subsequent publication): https://www.academia.edu/16116625/Indigenous_Decolonization_and_United_Nations_Membership_Indigenous_Peoples_and_the_Fundamental_Right_to_Self_Determination
See also (background paper): https://www.academia.edu/101121793/Indigenous_Peoples_Decolonization_and_Self_Determination_and_the_Human_Rights_Regime_in_International_Relations
...
Distributed in:
INDIGENOUS NATIONS & PEOPLES LAW eJOURNAL, Vol. 9, No. 10: Mar 29, 2013, Center for Indigenous Law, Governance and Citizenship, Syracuse University College of Law
PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW eJOURNAL, Vol. 8, No. 45: Apr 9, 2013, ALAN SYKES, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Stanford University - Law School
HUMAN RIGHTS & THE GLOBAL ECONOMY eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 30: Mar 20, 2013, MARTHA F. DAVIS, EDITOR, Associate Dean, Professor of Law and Co-Director, Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy, Northeastern University - School of Law, RASHMI DYAL-CHAND, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Northeastern University - School of Law, WENDY E. PARMET, EDITOR, George J. and Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished University Professor of Law, Northeastern University - School of Law
LAW & CULTURE eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 19: Mar 26, 2013, BRUCE L. HAY, EDITOR
Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, REVA B. SIEGEL, EDITOR, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law, Yale University - Law School , University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law
LAW, NORMS & INFORMAL ORDER eJOURNAL, Vol. 9, No. 12: Mar 21, 2013, RICHARD H. MCADAMS, EDITOR, Bernard D. Meltzer Professor, University of Chicago Law School
LAW & SOCIETY: INTERNATIONAL & COMPARATIVE LAW eJOURNAL, Sponsored by: Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Vol. 8, No. 54: Mar 22, 2013, CHRISTIANA OCHOA, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW eJOURNAL, Vol. 8, No. 45: Apr 9, 2013, ALAN SYKES, EDITOR, Professor of Law, Stanford University - Law School
CONFLICT STUDIES eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 38: Aug 21, 2013, KELLY M. KADERA, EDITOR
Associate Professor, University of Iowa - Department of Political Science, BRIAN H. LAI, EDITOR, Associate Professor, University of Iowa - Department of Political Science
POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS: INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS eJOURNAL, Vol. 7, No. 46: Mar 18, 2013, DAVID A. LAKE, EDITOR, Professor, UC San Diego
Social Responsibility of Business eJournals: Vol. 2, No. 159: 27 Nov 2013, LAW, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS & CSR eJOURNAL, EDITOR, Timothy M. Devinney, Professor of International Business University of Manchester - Alliance Manchester Business School
New York, 20 April - 1 May 2015
Item 5: Half-day discussion on the expert group meeting on the theme “Dialogue on an optional protocol to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”
28 April 2015
Statement by India Reed Bowers for International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE)
IOSDE honors the traditional territories of the Lenape Nation, Onondaga Peoples and all Indigenous Peoples here today.
IOSDE is concerned that over the many years of submissions and interventions at the UNPFII from Indigenous Peoples concerning mass atrocities against their Peoples, families and communities and thus humanity through State- and business-initiated torture, murder, militarization, criminalization and systematic devastation the Permanent Forum and UN system still refer to such horrors as human rights violations only. The concern is that Indigenous victims’ submissions are not being outwardly identified as reporting atrocities also in the context of international crimes and violations of international criminal law from a legal and/or victim-based advocacy perspective and analysis.
Yes, the United Nations is a Human Rights institution- however, the UN was founded with the primary goal and commitment of the world community stop genocide from ever happening again after the holocaust and WW2. In the context of Indigenous Peoples, is the UN actually doing this, and can we have this discussion if we are going to talk about a rights violation mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and the UNDRIP? What is the plan for how a UNDRIP complaint or review mechanism will address serious crimes against humanity and other crimes against peoples such as genocide, such as those we hear testimonials of here every year at the UNPFII, if reporting to the Human Rights Council? And in such a mechanism, where will claims of right to decolonize as a form of self- determination go within the UN system? ...
Sápmi is the traditional territory of the Sami People currently politically and territorially divided by the borders of the Nation-States of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. In preparation for Ms. Tauli-Corpuz’s visit, this Report provides some follow-up and additional information concerning both new developments and issues addressed and not addressed in conjunction with the previous visit (2010) to Sápmi and Sweden of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Mr. James Anaya, and his concluding Report to the Human Rights Council of the status of the Sami People in Sweden, Finland and Norway produced in 2011 . In addition to any other materials and submissions she receives from other institutions, groups and persons, Ms. Tauli-Corpuz will receive in-person input regarding the status of the Sami People during her visit to Sápmi in late August 2015 during pre-arranged, interactive dialogues with State and Sami representatives and speakers as well as local visits to specific Sami areas with a highlighting of specific issues the Sami People are facing in the context of Indigenous Rights, among other activities..."
https://www.sametinget.se/92639
1. Sweden has for many years been formally criticized for racism, discrimination and exclusivity faced by immigrants and persons of immigrant family origin within the State. Sweden’s policies and systems, but even more importantly the social atmosphere lived-in daily, continue to condone an assimilationist mentality, versus integration as a support to a pro-positive, pro-active multiculturalism. Assimilation-based approaches to law and policy as well as systems designs putn on-majority women and those persons facing intersectional discriminations, especially, at risk. Many in Swedish society continue to debate to this day if multiculturalism itself is a good thing or something Sweden should engage in at all. This debate (or silence and assimilationist approaches) occurs while all persons in Sweden considered to be ‘non-nationals’, ‘foreign-born nationals’, and even ‘national minorities’ (a Sweden-specific category of State identity, to be discussed later)and other non-majority persons are forced to wait in the wings to be accepted at some multicultural point in the future of Sweden as having own cultures, new contributions to be credited and paid for, and adding positive diversity to decision-making, influence, rights, analyses and voices. This waiting includes blockages in the forms of access to diversely expertise-based employment, diversity as self-representation as non-majority on issues, platforms, and otherwise,and access to non-discriminatory human-rights-based and criminal justice implementations and mechanisms as victims.
2.This reality of intersectional discrimination severely affects women in Sweden, especially, who are already at a disadvantage as women, compounded by discrimination based on ethnic or national origin or race. However, Sweden has formally and strictly sated that it does not apply an intersectional approach in its action plans against discrimination.3Hence, when Sweden and its organizations and systems continue to lobby and rally together to create an appearance to the outside world as strong and superior in women’s and human rights, in general, or by certain designs, it is exactly the women and others facing intersectional discrimination in real time who suffer most..."
Alternative Report for the CERD Review of Sweden, Submitted by International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE) to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 95th Session / April-May 2018; 29 March 2018
[With Recommendations]
Researched and written by India Reed Bowers, submitted by International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE) in collaboration with Association of Global Development of Batwa in Rwanda (ADBR) to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), 89th Session / April-May 2016; 3 April 2016.
Moreover, the precarious situation of immigrant women, and in particular ‘love immigrant’ women as unrecognized minorities (not considered ‘national minorities’), among other issues (and regardless of background, as one can understand that the author of this report is an American woman of predominantly European heritage, and still faced oppressions in Sweden and Sapmi that placed her at-risk as dependent on her “host” man), are crucial to understanding root causes of domestic violence in Sweden (and Sapmi).
Lastly, on cannot overlook the importance of intersectionality, despite Sweden’s refusal of the notion, for example, to UN CEDAW in its review of Sweden in 2016; intersectionality points us to some of the most vulnerable and at-risk persons in a society on the whole..."
Submitted by International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE)
On GREVIO (CoE monitoring body for the Istanbul Convention) and the Convention: "The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence is based on the understanding that violence against women is a form of gender-based violence that is committed against women because they are women. It is the obligation of the state to address it fully in all its forms and to take measures to prevent violence against women, protect its victims and prosecute the perpetrators. Failure to do so would make it the responsibility of the state. The convention leaves no doubt: there can be no real equality between women and men if women experience gender-based violence on a large-scale and state agencies and institutions turn a blind eye."
1. Sweden creates a clean exterior image and product presentation regarding adherence to women’s rights and the CEDAW Convention and human rights to the outside world, yet the reality lived for people and women within Sweden is very different, especially for but not limited to immigrant, Indigenous, refugee, foreign-born or foreign-born descent and all minority women.
2. There is a large gap between the presentable outlines of legislation, policy, funding and even gender-based work of (Stockholm- and South-Sweden concentrated) organizations of Sweden and the actual success of their functioning on the ground amongst the people and systems in the opinions of the women said to be served themselves, based on experiences of women in high-risk categories for abuse and domestic violence due to already existing in situations of intersectional discrimination in Sweden.
3. As an immigrant- and domestic-violence-victim-founded, Indigenous-Peoples/Rights-based, unfunded and voluntary non-governmental organization and network, IOSDE has keen insight into both silent and silenced truths in not only the international arena regarding women’s rights and violations therein, but in Sweden, its organizational home base. IOSDE stands firm that no policy, law, legislation, system, funding, reporting or otherwise can make up for the silencing of the victims themselves as the persons holding the solutions, ideas, keys, answers and concepts to a better today and tomorrow...."
Silence is Violence: A Shadow Report to UN CEDAW re Sweden, Submitted to the United Nations CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) Committee for its review of Sweden, 63rd Session, February 2016, by the International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE), 22 January 2016
Written submission for the “Half-day general discussion on the equal and inclusive representation of women in decision-making systems” on 22 February 2023, United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 84th session, 6 to 24 February 2023, Geneva
"We hold that it should be the Right of Indigenous Peoples, as self-governing Peoples per UN- and International Law, to, through their own leaderships, sign and ratify International Treaties and Conventions, including, significantly, CEDAW and other UN Human Rights Treaties, regardless as to whether or not the encompassing/colonizing Nation-State has done so or intends to; this, as a right to access to Decision-Making Processes and equal and inclusive representation in decision-making systems, especially for and by Indigenous and otherwise marginalized or victim-survivor women, as well as equality and accountability, both, for diverse leaderships and existences, and especially as access to equality and equity and decision-making for, by, and of Traditional Indigenous Women Leaders of their Communities, People(s) and Tribes.
[...]
We also hold that it is critical that the International Law makers, utilizers and managers, as well as other influencers, must recognize and respect that there are women like us who, our whole lives, have been working, solving, collaborating, loving, helping, collaborating, supporting, working unpaid but wholeheartedly and strongly, making change, demanding change, and doing so intersectionally and as solutions-based, together; whereby politics that seek to divide and erase us as positive solutions wholistically and already “doing the work” are not only ongoing facets of patriarchal and colonial, violent erasure of our labor, value(s) and existences, but also cater to those corrupted from any background or personhood willing to profit off of pretending like we and/or our works and ways and beings do not exist, that many of us are already living solutions.
[...]
Indigenous Peoples, and especially Traditional Women Leaders of their People, must be allowed to sign and ratify UN Treaties, including CEDAW. If not permitted or recognized to exist and be self-determining within and and in concerning structural political systems, to decide how to protect ourselves and define and develop ourselves as girls and women safely and with inclusion to our innermost beings, either as a(n Indigenous or otherwise) Peoples or (HRDS, LGBTQ+, collaborating/intersectional, etc) persons, as who we are, any of us, in the real world, and in-line with how we are really living and doing, as women, the gaps to commit violence against us all will continue to increase a thousand-fold."
"The Winnemem Wintu are an Indigenous People within what is currently named the United States. The Winnemem Wintu are a federally(ie State)-unrecognized, or federally-non-recognized / federally-non-acknowledged, Indigenous People that is led traditionally, matriarchal and matrilineal, by Chief Caleen Sisk.
The total Winnemem Wintu tribal membership hovers around 126, compared to its estimated peak of 14,000. Winnemem Wintu people’s identity and cultural continuity is that of the currently- namedCalifornia’s first Indigenous People of the Buliyum Puyuuk (Mount Shasta) and Winnemem Waywaket (McCloud River) watershed. Most of the Winnemem Wintu’s traditional river and sacred sites and villages are now submerged under the McCloud Reservoir and the Shasta Reservoir, and the sacred salmon no longer breed upstream of Shasta Dam. In the face of these hardships, the Winnemem Wintu continue to strive to preserve Winnemem native language, practice Winnemem religion and traditional healing methods, and protect the rights of salmon, defend Rights to the few remaining sacred sites, ceremonial places, villages and burial grounds from further encroachment.
The status of being unrecognized is a serious form of legal genocide. At the same time, recognition by the USA is not conducive to retaining our tribal traditions and culture that is beneficial to the tribe’s lands and water and sacred places- it ignores and fails to protect the tribal purpose to retain our own Indigenous Knowledge, and it sifts out Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge in exchange for an “economy system”, creating a major loss many people in those systems don’t even see happening. The Winnemem have continuously faced with peaceful resistance and traditional lifeways the discriminatory, paternalistic, colonizing and genocidal nature of the top-down and controlling designs of the State’s restructuring of tribes’ systems for federal recognition. Certainly, all around the world, Indigenous women are unrecognized and underrepresented. There are far more unrecognized and unrepresented Indigenous Peoples than is documented, and if one includes persons disenrolled from, for example, internalized State recognition systems, the number much further increases.
[...]
The Winnemem Wintu welcome the development of the United Nations to include self-governing Indigenous Peoples and within the diverse and foundational scope and rights of self-determination in accordance with the founding Charter of the UN and its subsidiary bodies; “...self-determination is not only the fundamental right acting as the backbone of all of other rights enshrined within the UNDRIP and the rights of Indigenous Peoples but also the UN Charter itself under Article 1(2), “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples...””
The Winnemem Wintu are in agreement with the representatives at this workshop that it is long overdue that Indigenous Peoples have our own seats at the United Nations, and not based on the determination of the very systems and States that brutally colonized our territories, waters, ecosystems, and existences. It is imperative that, collectively as Indigenous Peoples, we have Indigenous regulations for representation and with mechanisms for fair participation..."
"...Indigenous Peoples should have status equal and equitable to States at the UN in all areas, including the rights to draft, negotiate and ratify Human Rights Treaties and participate in the General Assembly as Members or Permanent Observers of the UN. We should not have to undergo changing our traditional governance and ways to be considered "recognized" by States or otherwise. Additionally, we encourage the use of the recent Human Rights Council Resolution 48(7) on Negative impacts of the legacies of colonialism.
We look forward to working with the global community with access to seats of equality and equity alongside other Indigenous Governances and the representatives of States, to improve humanity and save Mother Earth...."
The Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group Shadow Report in its entirety makes the case for, amongst other things, the need for a Truth Commission regarding the Holy See and the Inter Caetera and the Apache-Ndé-Nneé and Indigenous Peoples, reparations and changes in related and resulting laws and policies regarding Indigenous territories and sovereignty therein, and a legally-formal and public rescinding by the Holy See of the Inter Caetera and its legal, political, spiritual and territorial legacies. The past and ongoing effects, as exhibited in the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group Shadow Report, of crimes against humanity and genocide, including cultural genocide, ethnocide, ecocide, and environmental racism as-experienced by the Apache-Ndé-Nneé and that result from the legacy of the Inter Caetera must be addressed legally and formally, and with proper and Indigenous FPIC-based redress and remedy, including but not limited to in the context of the option of a full and formal Truth Commission. Formal and direct legal codification must be made that denounces and rescinds all subsequent and related regional, national and international legal decisions, treaties and codifications based on and developed from the inherent racism against Indigenous Peoples of the Inter Caetera.
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CERD/Shared%20Documents/VAT/INT_CERD_NGO_VAT_22151_E.pdf
The Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group presents this Alternative Report to address the situation of discrimination surrounding and resulting from the lack of redress for and ongoing legacy of Spain’s involvement in the colonization of the Apache-Ndé-Nneé People, territories, peoples, lifeways, and more, through Spain’s various forms of slavery, subjugation, abuse, murder, domination, dividing, conquering, theft and generations-long damage against the Apache-Ndé People therein..."
Alternative Report for the CERD Review of Spain submitted by the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) 89th Session / April-May 2016
3 April 2016
collective demand to no longer be forced to live the lies and the spiritual, moral, juridical, territorial,
political and social discrimination of the Church, the Holy See, and its primary influences on colonialism,
land-grabbing, genocide, State- and Kingdom-building, slavery, and theft and torture that has been
brutalized on the backs of the Indigenous Peoples of the world and the ‘Americas’, including the Apache-
Ndé-Nneé, and their traditional lives, lifeways, worldviews and territories. Current situations of suffering of
the Apache-Ndé-Nneé are tied to the lack of full and just recognition of the identity, sovereignty, and the
territorial and cultural integrity of Apache-Ndé-Nneé Peoples, a direct result of the legacy of discrimination
against Indigenous Peoples contained within the Inter Caetera (Annex 1) and lack of access to justice
therein.3 As the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) sates,
“The pre-emptory norm of non-discrimination, a fundamental pillar of international human rights law,
requires that indigenous peoples have access to justice on an equal basis to the general population.”4 As
exhibited by the individual papers, testimonials and materials in the Apache-Ndé-Nneé Working Group
Shadow Report, situations and realities of extreme discrimination, including but not limited to legal,
political, territorial and social discrimination persist due to the lack of redress and remedy regarding the
legacy of the Holy See’s Inter Caetera.5
have unified our expertise in the fields of culture, law, history, philosophy, arts, economics, politics, health,
social welfare, education, spirituality, science, and much more. We endeavor to provide the truth and use
our expertise to redress for past and ongoing occurring grievances that Apaches have faced historically and
continue to face on a daily basis. We utilize the United Nations and international treaty bodies and
mechanisms to promote the specific and general welfare and well-being of the Peoples in order to bring
about harmony and balance within our own beings and belonging. We are re-establishing our permanent
roles as Apache Ndé Nneé in the international political arena, in accordance with our understanding of
Apache Ndé Nneé truth, laws, oral tradition, oral history, historical memory, inter-generational knowledge
and community documentation and archiving systems. The Apache Ndé Nneé system of analyzing
colonialism and colonial power has been under development since first contact, post 1492. The Apache
Ndé Nneé Working Group exercise Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty to enable justice for all
Ndé Nneé peoples and future generations to come.
This is an emergent Apache Ndé Nneé framework to establish new justice, peace, and redress processes.
The present utilization of the United Nations’ systems is one of diverse approaches to address and receive
full redress and justice for all The People.
So how is it that indigenous nations, despite being recognized by their colonizers as nations to have made (and broken) treaties with, or to address the leaders of, and so on, have not been included in the UN Decolonization process? For this paper I will conduct a preliminary investigation into the politics of indigenous peoples’ participation at the UN, or lack thereof, and why their exclusion from the decolonization process is a root cause and perpetuating factor of the political sidelining, or apartheid even (although I will not attempt to prove apartheid in this paper, but will leave that for a later date), of indigenous peoples within the Human Rights Regime of the United Nations. In the footnotes of this paper the reader will find in-depth evidence, discussions and debates concerning the issues presented.
[...] In regards to issues concerning Indigenous Nations and their rights to address these issues on an international platform, it would seem that the UNPFII was meant to provide an alternative to decolonization and/or member State status, as it is a forum where Indigenous leaders meet once a year to discuss the issues that affect their constituencies and nations. However, within the current structure of the UNPFII only eight members are nominated by indigenous organizations while the other eight are nominated by member States of the UN. Thus, while not the General Assembly of the UN, even in the space provided for Indigenous representatives at the UN, member States have a 50% political hold on who the decision-makers are... and this all under the umbrella of ECOSOC, which can hardly equate to the political and judicial benefits of being at the table equal to UN member States as self-determining Nations. Given the clear self-identification and shared history of indigenous peoples, pre-colonialism, as self-governing and often treaty- making nations (at the onset of colonialism, with invading non-indigenous nations), why did application of the United Nations General Assembly resolution 1541, the Declaration On The Granting Of Independence To Colonial Countries And Peoples adopted in New York, 14 December 1960, exclude indigenous peoples and their territories?
[...] What are the consequences of not identifying indigenous nations as peoples with the right to decolonize (by method and/or goal of choice, within the scope UN Decolonizing resolution 1541) at the international UN level?
[...] Not only was the United Nations formed, seemingly, to create world peace, but perhaps it was also a way to secure US and European political territorial power internationally in the context of international relations. If Indigenous Nations were to be treated equally under the international regime, then or now, the most powerful nation States of the world would potentially (but not necessarily) have to lose much of their territorial “integrity” (as it is called by Western law) and, in addition, many of their military bases (as many nation State military bases are indigenous lands without permission of the indigenous nations), strategic strongholds via genocidal colonial corporatism (such as the US-Indonesia West Papua stronghold via Freeport mining, ensuring the US ties to Indonesia’s military backing in a location of the world between the US and Asia/Russia), in addition to the weaponry of ignorance of member State citizens against the true rights of indigenous peoples as Nations.
[...] United Nations declarations addressing Decolonization could easily be seen to have the capacity to address indigenous territories and peoples. Looking beyond this factor, why do member states declare the rights of some peoples to decolonize?
[...] From death threats and murder, to bribery, torture, enforced internalization of fear, militarization and disappearance, and imprisonment, even to the disallowing of visas or entry into a powerful member State for an international meeting, indigenous peoples who would argue for legal, UN-decolonization-based secession, decolonization in any other official form under the UN human rights regime, and/or political equality at the international level for all indigenous nations or their own nation, all experience these major-player member state bullying tactics. As well many of their allies experience these tactics (I myself have many stories of my own in regards to this). Such experiences have brought about NGOs which specifically address the rights of human rights defenders, from newer organizations such as Front Line Defenders to protection from older organizations such as Amnesty International. At the same time, as I mentioned in the Introduction, indigenous peoples are still not documented as being sidelined politically/by voice within the United Nations by the UN itself.
[...] The colonial powers’ desired assimilation of indigenous peoples will not happen. The movement for self-determined rights has always been too strong to quash. This is the very reason as to why the UN Charter, Declaration of Human Rights and decolonization existed in the first place, to allow for such freedoms... or so they state from a legal perspective. Whether or not it was intended that these functions would truly bring into existence self-determination by all peoples, self-determination is what will happen, because peoples and nations demand it. Declarations and resolutions submitted to the international human rights regime by indigenous groups have increasingly been in the cultural language and perceptions true to self-determining indigenous peoples and nations, even if still on the sidelines of the UN mechanisms at large.
[...] If anything can be said about regimes it is that they are not static. Indigenous peoples and their allies have suffered and worked and lost their lives and quality of life for many years to stop indigenous genocide and Member State colonialism, and to gain the rights spelled out in the UN Charter and Declaration of Human Rights in the UN system and Human Rights regime itself. The time has come for the Human Rights regime and United Nations to no longer be a political weapon of the large colonial member states and international powers.
[...] Indigenous peoples have been practicing human rights for centuries, and the regime will be all the richer, perhaps not in gold but in achieving its true intentions, when indigenous peoples are fully included in Human Rights International Relations. Indigenous peoples may or may not hold the key to true righteousness any more than other peoples or nations at the end of the day, but we can be sure that equality and diversity, when respected simultaneously by all of humanity- where every group of peoples is seen for its beneficial contribution to the whole, and not just as a sidelined, colonized or otherwise degraded entity- does."
See also (subsequent publication): https://www.academia.edu/16116625/Indigenous_Decolonization_and_United_Nations_Membership_Indigenous_Peoples_and_the_Fundamental_Right_to_Self_Determination