Indigenous Rights in the Commonwealth Project...

Indigenous Rights in the Commonwealth Project: position paper on international development targets and indigenous peoples' economic, social and cultural rights

Richard Bourne

1 Introduction
The Indigenous Rights in the Commonwealth Project is a three year, research and advocacy programme beginning in January 2001, conducted by the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit, London, in conjunction with partners. These formal partners include ( as of October 2001 ) the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, the Commonwealth Association of Indigenous Peoples and Dr Ben Naanen of the University of Port Harcourt. In addition the project is being assisted by many Indigenous persons and scholars, and has an advisory group of three -- Albert Barume, Jonathan Mazower and Patrick Rata.

The overall object of the project is to shed light on the human rights situation of Indigenous groups, and to persuade the Commonwealth association -- governments and non-governmental bodies -- to give priority to its improvement. For reasons of practicality the project is focusing on 20 Commonwealth countries in which Indigenous issues seem particularly important. These are: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka ( south Asia ); Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda ( Africa ); Australia, Fiji, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea ( Pacific and southeast Asia ); and Belize, Canada and Guyana ( western hemisphere ).

Within this project, which has outputs of various kinds, there is a specific part devoted to Indigenous people and international development targets ( IDTs ), and the realisation of their economic, social and cultural rights. This involves: a comparison of the disadvantage of selected Indigenous tribal groups with their national majority counterparts, looked at by various indicators; a discussion of the reasons for these discrepancies; a consideration of whether national development policies fail to address the causes of these discrepancies; and to highlight approaches which either have made a positive difference or could do so.

The international development targets have widespread international support and were endorsed by Commonwealth leaders at their Edinburgh summit in 1997. The seven targets, all based on a 1990 start, are: to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty ( taken to be $1 a day ) by 2015; to provide universal primary education in all countries by 2015; to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005; to reduce the mortality rate for infants and children under five by two-thirds by 2015; to reduce maternal mortality by threequarters by 2015; to provide access to reproductive health services for all individuals of appropriate ages as soon as possible, and no later than 2015; and to ensure the implementation of national strategies for sustainable development by 2005, so as to ensure the current trends in the loss of environmental resources by 2015. The targets recognise that qualitative elements -- including democratic accountability, the protection of human rights and the rule of law-- are essential to attainment of the quantitative targets.

As yet, it should be said, there is little evidence that Commonwealth nation states committed to the IDTs have identified Indigenous peoples as a particular concern if the targets are to be reached.

This inquiry is problematic in various ways. In some countries ( eg India and Nigeria ) it is difficult to disaggregate statistics for Indigenous peoples, or they may not be properly or recently collected. In terms of international development indicators it is obviously desirable to see how the trends are moving. But more serious is the fact that the basic US $1 a day marker of extreme poverty may not adequately reflect the way of life of certain indigenous peoples who live partly outside a cash economy. The $1 a day measure may not, for example, do justice to the depression of groups which have lost their lands and habitat and become prone to alcohol addiction. More cash may actually be a marker of welfare dependency, where an income of $2 a day is just more money to spend on drink. More positively, land ownership which assures traditional hunting and agriculture may provide a better level of subsistence -- even if it cannot be measured in cash terms -- than any monetary target.

Nunavut Inuit of northern Canada, for example, have a “mixed economy”, where households combine cash income from a variety of sources ( wages, social transfers, arts and crafts production ) with income in kind from the land. Extended families pool and share food, cash and labour as required: market and non-market activities are mutually supportive. The replacement value of “country food” which they hunt or harvest has been estimated at C$30M-35M a year, but crucially it is fresher and more nutritious than expensive frozen meat flown in from southern cities like Ottawa and Winnipeg ( see Hicks and White in “Nunavut: Inuit regain control of their lands and their lives”, IWGIA, Copenhagen, 2000 ).

There is therefore a methodological problem about defining poverty in cash terms only. But to estimate well-being or living standards in other ways -- by nutritional standards, life expectancy, social and family cohesion, and the like -- presents difficulties also. The key question about an Indigenous community or its members who are not fully part of the market economy is, "Are you better or worse off?" But that too implies a process of continuous improvement which may be alien to tribes which have survived, with periods of greater or lesser prosperity, for centuries or millennia. Whereas the Mohawk scaffolders who work on the skyscrapers of eastern Canada and New York get a take-home pay that reflects the fortunes of the construction industry, the real standard of living of remoter Adivasi groups in the Indian forests depends more on the impact of logging or dam-building on the habitats which give them sustenance.

The project will seek to analyse the issues of disadvantage which affect most Indigenous peoples in Commonwealth countries, by comparison with national majority populations. But the wider context, of a coercive interaction with modern market economies for peoples which are culturally and numerically ill-prepared for the practices of competitive capitalism, will not be lost sight of. The following sections give some snapshots of current issues, based on preliminary desk research.

2 Education
There is little doubt that the children of Indigenous groups are routinely disadvantaged in national and regional ( local state or provincial ) education systems. Although it is possible that the IDT -- to achieve universal primary education for age 6 to 14 year olds by 2015 -- may be nearly achieved worldwide, it is probable that Indigenous children in many countries will be among those who remain outside the school system.

For example in India, where enrolment rates rose steadily between 1989-90 and 1997-98, and more and more villages of scheduled tribes had schools within two kilometres, the dropout rate for tribal children in classes 1 to 5 in 1991-92 ranged from 38.59 per cent in Madhya Pradesh to 76.81 per cent in Orissa ( Government of India figures quoted in K. Sujatha, Education among Tribals, 2000 ). This dropout rate for tribal girls in Rajasthan in the same year was as high as 84.2 per cent.

In other parts of the Commonwealth the situation is even less impressive. At present only around 25 per cent of San/Basarwa of the relevant age groups in Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa are attending school ( J Suzman, An Introduction to the Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern Africa, 2001 ) "and there is a very high dropout rate among those who do attend, marked by a clear dip in numbers enrolled in higher grades. This is particularly apparent among female learners, very few of whom complete their formal education."

Problems for Indigenous children in the settler countries of the Commonwealth have, of course, been widely publicised. In Australia, for example, the retention rate for Indigenous students in 1999 was 33 per cent, compared to 75 per cent for all students, and nearly half of Indigenous people aged 15 years and over had received no formal education ( quoted from ATSIC by N. Jones, Report on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Australia, 2001, for the Indigenous Rights in the Commonwealth Project ).

Recent publications relating to Canada have emphasised that the national approach to formal education for Aboriginal peoples, until lately part of a strategy of sedentarisation and assimilation, has had the effect of diminishing respect for their own cultures and identity and setting up psychological confusion and educational failure in conventional terms. A study by Colin Samson in two Innu communities in Labrador show that most Innu have had almost entirely negative experiences with schools and teachers. They have been physically and sexually abused by priests and teachers, made to feel ashamed of their identity and language, and recent attempts to introduce “culture days” have parodied their real experience ( see Colin Samson, “Teaching lies: the Innu experience of schooling”, London Journal of Canadian Studies, vol 16 ).

The very concept of education as an industrial-type activity, conducted in a special place for regular hours each day, can be contrary to Indigenous traditions. “Traditionally, education was largely an informal process that provided the young with the specific skills, attitudes, knowledge and values required to function in everyday life”, writes Verna Kirkness of the University of British Columbia, of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples ( London Journal of Canadian Studies, vol 11, 1995 ).

“Boys and girls were taught at an early age to observe and to utilise, to cope with and respect their environment. Through observation and practice, young children learned child rearing practices and the art of hunting, trapping, fishing, farming, food gathering and preparation, building shelters. Central to the teachings was the belief in the sacred” ( ibid ).

Too often the formal education system has not enabled Indigenous children to achieve a lifestyle of equality with majority populations. What is true at school level has been even more manifest at tertiary level. Whereas in 1975-6 less than 1 per cent of Aboriginal status population in Canada was enrolled in colleges and universities, in 1988-9 the enrolment was still only just over 3 per cent ( quoted by Kirkness ). Institutions of higher education, in many Commonwealth countries, are profoundly unfriendly environments to Indigenous students, yet because of their own status and traditions they rarely understand this. However, it should be noted that in New Zealand, where there is also a Maori university, increasing numbers of Maori have been entering higher education.

Provision of school places alone clearly does not guarantee an educational experience. As a recent study in Namibia ( Le Roux, 2000 ) has shown, how well San children perform depends on questions of culture, language, power, differences in socialisation, poverty, dependency, land rights, and inter-ethnic relations. Suzman quotes Namibia's Ministry of Basic Education, Sport and Culture as identifying specific problems: the high mobility of San individuals and families; the lack of mother-tongue education resources in San languages and of qualified teachers ( a key difficulty, because of the small numbers speaking some languages ); the minority status of San children in most schools; the abuse of and discrimination against such learners in school; and the adaptive, acculturative and social adjustment problems faced by San children and their parents.

There are major issues here, which do not affect all Indigenous groups equally. Young people have a right to grow up with their culture and mother tongue, and simultaneously to have access to an education in the majority culture. This is much easier to manage by national education departments where Indigenous children are numerous, mother-tongue teachers are available, and needs are recognised. It is common for many citizens in Commonwealth countries to speak three languages, and recent curricula in southern Africa ( South Africa and Mozambique ) and India have aimed to provide local mother-tongue teaching at the primary stage with a process of introduction to national and international languages as children grow up.

However where Indigenous groups are small, or their children are lumped in with others -- as in the Remote Area Dwellers policy in Botswana -- their language and cultural identity gets inadequate attention and the risk of discrimination increases. Some concepts of education for development by post-independence national governments have not been pluralistic, for both philosophic and financial reasons.

The disproportion in power, between state authorities and majority populations on one side and Indigenous groups on the other, has had negative consequences. It has led to discrimination, both implicit or explicit in schools where certain groups are labelled as "primitive", and to a desire by some Indigenous families to have as little as possible to do with a formal education which is seen as a coercive threat to their own communities and way of life. One of the toughest tasks is to make education seem empowering for Indigenous families, and to enable them to obtain a sense of ownership, with enhanced life chances for their children.

There is evidence that some Indigenous groups are now more ready to see the advantages of formal education, and that this may also reflect a willingness by states to respond to their special needs. Suzman states, "There is a growing awareness among San themselves of the value of formal education, as a well as a greater willingness among education authorities to accommodate the 'special needs' of San learners." Namibia's Education Ministry, for instance, set up an inter-sectoral task force to address San issues, and the number of Namibian San in formal education doubled in the decade to 1998.

The geographical spread of Indigenous groups, often in terrain inhospitable to majority communities, has in the past led to use of boarding hostels or boarding schools for their children. This has sometimes led to a forced acculturation, and a requirement for students to be away from their communities at times of hunting or festivals important to their own cultures.

There are also issues to do with community education, and the role of Indigenous elders and leaders. History, both in Africa and south Asia, demonstrates the crucial role that was played in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by community leaders who wanted their people to have access to a western-style education without compromising their own traditions. In Botswana, for example, chiefs instituted a Hut Tax, to pay for a modern education not provided by Christian missionaries. In India during the imperial era the founder of the Tata dynasty established the India Institute of Science in Bangalore, while the Aga Khan established a university for Muslims at Aligarh.

In the contemporary world therefore a "special needs" approach to the right to education for Indigenous peoples must involve adults as well as children. Adults need access to basic literacy and health education, for instance, for themselves -- as well as to encourage and keep in step with their children. Indian Government figures suggest that the literacy rate of adults in the Scheduled Tribes is around 29.6 per cent, as compared with a national average of 52 per cent, and that over three quarters of the ST women are illiterate ( Ministry of Tribal Affairs website, 2001 ). Where Indigenous groups have traditional or elective leaderships it is therefore particularly important that these develop positive attitudes.

An IDT concern is of course gender equity, and in general Indigenous girls are less likely to go to school, and more likely to drop out than boys. However in India there have been considerable improvements so that, in the eight years up to 1997-98, the proportion of girls among tribal students rose from 36.5 per cent to 43 per cent. In the northeastern states of Mizoram, Nagaland and West Bengal there is now a roughly equal proportion of boys and girls at the primary stage. In Rajasthan, girls' enrolment rose by 148 per cent in this period, so that from a mere 23 per cent of the total enrolment of pupils from Scheduled Tribes the proportion had gone up to 35 per cent by 1997-98 ( see K. Sujatha, "Education among Tribals", 2000 ).

Strong national propaganda in favour of girls' education has therefore had a proven impact among some Indigenous communities, as it has had in majority societies. The consequential benefits for health, educational attainment and in other areas play out over a lifetime, although the social impact of girls' education in traditional communities can be disruptive.

The key aim in education of the Indigenous Rights in the Commonwealth Project must be to change attitudes so that Indigenous students actually enjoy their right to an education. This will require an approach which empowers rather than disempowers Indigenous groups and families. It may challenge the nature of schooling, as well as the technocratic and materialist assumptions which underlie many mass education systems.

3 Health
As with education, one may generalise that health standards among Indigenous peoples -- including the IDT targets for mortality rates for infants, children under five and mothers -- are usually much worse than for majority communities. But the IDT concerns shine a laser beam on a much more complex health situation where poor mortality rates may be a consequence of other factors, such as alcoholism, social depression and inidividual apathy, low self-image and inadequate preventive and curative care.

The AIDS pandemic is beginning to impinge on certain Indigenous communities. Commenting on the situation of the San in southern Africa, Suzman writes, "San communities are poorly equipped to deal with problems such as AIDS and TB, to which they are very vulnerable due to their poverty. In addition, San are not well adjusted socially to cope with widespread AIDS infection, or to prevent it. In urban areas or transit areas ( eg along the Trans-Caprivi highway ) in particular, where sexual relations between San and others are most frequent, these problems are most marked."

A survey in Kajiado district of Kenya, where the predominant group are Maasai pastoralists, was taken among women food handlers in the mid-1990s -- among those working and serving the public in premises for eating and drinking ( see Nomadic News, issue 2001/02 ). It found that food handlers were more at risk of HIV/AIDS than the general population, with an HIV infection rate of 30 per cent among women aged 25-35; among such women who had more than one sexual partner the infection rate was up to 75 per cent. Some traditional cultural practices among the Maasai increase the risk of infection, and point to the need for culturally-specific health strategies.

Obviously loss of land and habitat, and cultural disruption, underpin many of the more overt psychosocial and physical health problems displayed in Indigenous groups. In Amazonia an extreme sense of powerlessness has led to individual and family suicides and in at least one Commonwealth case -- of the Innu in Canada, documented by Survival International, the NGO -- similar mass depression has occurred. In various countries Indigenous groups have been under physical or cultural pressure for a century or more, sometimes forced to migrate several times. The traditional health expertise of shamans and birth attendants, though its value may seem mixed in the eyes of modern scientific professionals, has been undermined.

Industrial developments with risks to health, which would meet fierce opposition in developed countries, have been placed close to Indigenous communities. A case in point is the uranium mine near Jadugada in the Indian state of Jharkand. Adivasi people there have been living with low-dose radiation for 30 years. Dr N K Upadhyay, a former professor at Ranchi University who has set up the Centre for Applied Ecology at Jamshedpur, has found abnormalities and premature deaths among children and cattle living nearby. Cancer, impotence, spontaneous abortions and skin and other ailments have been numerous, particularly in families living close to the tailings ponds, where radioactive waste from the processing plant is piped and abandoned ( Independent on Sunday, 20 May 2001 ).

A key issue in the present study is the extent to which national health policies are calibrated to support Indigenous communities. Their relatively small numbers, and their political insignificance as electors, often makes it difficult for Health Ministries to justify the resources or attention that their actual situation deserves. They are not seen in capitals as a pressing priority. In a few cases NGOs have sought to help, but the general picture is of marginalised peoples getting occasional or poor quality health care.

The numerical and political powerlessness of Indigenous peoples is illustrated by the San of southern Africa, with a population of between 88,000 and 107,000 spread through six countries, with the great majority living in Botswana and Namibia ( see Suzman ). Many live in border areas, badly affected by recent wars in the region, and forced to migrate. Even if they were more literate and politically sophisticated than is the case they would have the greatest difficulty in getting adequate health attention. High density suburbs, or groups claiming a reward after a war of liberation, are much more likely to get health clinics and doctors in ongoing political competition.

The health case demonstrates that, while indigeneity is a marker for lack of development and inadequate respect for socioeconomic rights, it also points to the need for arguments on behalf of Indigenous groups which governments have to respect. This is a policy requirement which constantly recurs in other fields. Even in the developed Commonwealth countries of Canada and Australia there has been a backlash in the majority electorate when it is alleged that Indigenous groups are getting special favours. The risk of such a backlash is greater where democracies are less firmly grounded, and the sense of poverty among majority communities is more pervasive.

The right to health is clearly not enjoyed by Indigenous peoples even to the extent available to other poor communities. Yet, in a globalised world with increased travel and movement of peoples, Indigenous people with inadequate immunities are more vulnerable to disease than ever before. Nor can majority populations rest secure where Indigenous groups offer a reservoir for killer strains. It must be an objective of the Indigenous Rights in the Commonwealth Project to make this case: reducing mortality, and raising health standards for Indigenous peoples in ways that they can positively practice, is crucial to their survival. It may require a more holistic and Indigenous-owned strategy than offered by the IDTs.

4 Environment
The IDT aims for implementation of a national strategy for sustainable development in all countries by 2005 -- 13 years after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Its intention is that current trends in the loss of environmental resources are effectively reversed, at both global and national levels, by 2015. This is an objective which might seem to place Indigenous groups in a privileged situation, where their long acquaintance with their own environments would be seen as a global and national resource, and where their views would be consulted with respect. However, this opportunity would not appear to have been taken in all Commonwealth countries.

Aside from the national strategies there has also been continuing activity on the ground -- by governments, multinationals, armed forces and others -- which has eroded the habitat of Indigenous peoples and those environmental resources with which they are intimately concerned. Deforestation ( in parts of Guyana ) dam-building ( leading to the displacement of Adivasis by the Narmada dams in India ), mining ( as in the Kakadu National Park in northern Australia ) are examples of such environmental threat. Warfare in the Great Lakes region of central Africa has wreaked havoc on the Twa people, who live in Uganda and Cameroon as well as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Following decisions by the European Parliament the European Commission has recognised the role of Indigenous peoples in protecting habitat, and the damage caused by faulty development projects in the past. There are increasing international efforts to include Indigenous peoples meaningfully in environmental policy and management. The World Commission on Protected Areas, supported by the IUCN, WWF and Cardiff University, has been publishing principles, guidelines and case studies on Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and Protected Areas ( Javier Beltran is editor and the series editor is Adrian Phillips, IUCN 2000 ). The focus is of course on protected areas, but the principles agreed by IUCN/WCPA and WWF reflect current understanding of sustainable development as well as international agreements, and deserve to be widely adopted in Commonwealth countries.

They assume that: protected areas will survive only if they are seen to be of value, in the widest sense, to the nation as a whole and to local people in particular; the rights of Indigenous and other traditional peoples inhabiting protected areas must be respected by promoting and allowing full participation in co-management of resources, and in a way that would not affect or undermine the objectives for the protected area as set out in its management plan; knowledge, innovations and practices of Indigenous and other traditional peoples have much to contribute to the management of protected areas; and governments and protected area managers should incorporate customary and Indigenous tenure and resource use, and control systems, as a means of enhancing biodiversity conservation.

The five principles adopted by WCPA, leading to 22 guidelines, are as follows ( ibid page ix ):

"Principle 1
Indigenous and other traditional peoples have long associations with nature and a deep understanding of it. Often they have made significant contributions to the maintenance of many of the earth's most fragile ecosystems, through their traditional sustainable resource use practices and culture-based respect for nature. Therefore there should be no inherent conflict between the objectives of protected areas and the existence, within and around their borders,of Indigenous and other traditional peoples. Moreover, they should be recognised as rightful, equal partners in the development and implementation of conservation strategies that affect their lands, territories, waters, coastal seas, and other resources, and in particular in the establishment and management of protected areas.

Principle 2
Agreements drawn up between conservation institutions, including protected area management agencies, and Indigenous and other traditional peoples for the establishment and management of protected areas affecting their lands, territories, waters, coastal seas and other resources should be based on full respect for the rights of Indigenous and other traditional peoples to traditional sustainable use of their lands, territories, waters, coastal seas and other resources. At the same time such agreements should be based on the recognition by Indigenous and other traditional peoples of their responsibility to conserve biodiversity, ecological integrity and natural resources harboured in those protected areas.

Principle 3
The principles of decentralisation, participation, transparency and accountability should be taken into account in all matters pertaining to the mutual interest of protected areas and Indigenous and other traditional peoples.

Principle 4
Indigenous peoples and other traditional peoples should be able to fully and equitably in. the benefits associated with protected areas, with due recognition to the rights of other legitimate stakeholders.

Principle 5
The rights of Indigenous and other traditional peoples in connection with protected areas are often an international responsibility, since many of the lands territories, waters, coastal seas and other resources which they own or otherwise occupy or use cross national boundaries, as indeed do many of the ecosystems in need of protection."

The study quoted here looked at eleven cases, of which three were in the Commonwealth: the Sarstoon-Temash National Park in Belize, the Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada, and the Kakadu National Park in Australia. It concludes that, although most of the eleven parks were declared without the consent of the traditional inhabitants, there is now increasing involvement of Indigenous peoples. But it cautiously points out that "in reality the involvement of Indigenous and trditional peoples in the planning and decision-making processes, and empowerment of local groups, often falls short of the ideal." There are important differences between Indigenous responsibility, comanagement, and a consultation with Indigenous peoples which could be perfunctory or cosmetic. However, where the Indigenous people are fully involved in the management there are clear ecological benefits.

One major Commonwealth initiative in sustainable forestry development is the Iwokrama project in Guyana, launched in 1989 by a presidential offer of a million acres, and now the site of a series of experiments in conservation, sustainable development, ecological tourism and education. Amerindian groups have collected from and hunted over this rainforest for centuries, though their principal villages, Annai and Kurupakari, are at the edge of the designated area. In the early 1990s there was some criticism that the Amerindians were not being fully consulted in the design of the project but, after a change of government, several measures were put in train to protect their interests. These have included arrangements for consultation, support for advanced education and, crucially and on a significant scale, employment.

A change in international opinion, reflecting both a growing respect for Indigenous rights and an awareness of the Indigenous contribution to the environment, is illustrated by the World Bank's Indigenous Peoples' Development Initiative, launched in 1993. This has many aspects but it has, for example, led to the Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorean Peoples Development Project ( LCR Sustainable Development Working Paper number 6 ). This has had a total budget of US$50M and, among other things, has promoted small rural projects, land tenure regularisation and cultural heritage activities.

Although there are clearly differences amongst Commonwealth countries with Indigenous populations it would appear that there is still much to be done to involve Indigenous peoples fully in ecological management. A few countries still see Indigenous peoples as a threat to rational management of protected areas, or the growth of tourism or other proclaimed developmental objectives. This seems to be why the Botswana government is trying to remove San from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, and why Sri Lankan authorities are removing Veddha from the Mahaweli National Park. Even where the land rights of Indigenous people are respected they may be excluded from ecological management, even though Indigenous understanding of fragile ecosystems has been a life-or-death matter for centuries.

It must be an aim of the Indigenous Rights in the Commonwealth Project to support changes of attitude among governments, and national majority opinion, so that Indigenous peoples become genuine partners in environmental policy-making and management. The survival and prosperity of human diversity, as represented by the wide variety of Indigenous peoples, is intimately linked to the survival of biodiversity on this planet.


5 Conclusion
This position paper indicates thinking so far, with some examples drawn from a few Commonwealth countries. Plainly the situation of Indigenous peoples varies considerably, even within the same country, and there have been political and legal developments ( eg the establishment of Nunavut in Canada, or new states like Jharkand in India ) which may alter the human rights situation – including socioeconomic rights for Indigenous peoples – over time. More examples of good practice need to be gathered.

The fundamental issue for a Commonwealth, established by states with different ethnicities emerging from an empire, is whether and how it can recognise the special needs of frequently disadvantaged First Peoples. Their minority status and lack of contemporary political skills meant that they never obtained national sovereignty at the time of independence. Yet from southern Africa to Australia this has been more than a numerical fluke: it was the inevitable result of decimation and dispossession over centuries by more powerful peoples.

Indigenous Peoples, though now increasingly claiming their rights, will not obtain them on their own. In majoritarian democracies they will usually be voted down, and in the poorest countries it will usually be possible to argue that there are more non-indigenous than Indigenous who are deprived of their socioeconomic rights. Nonetheless as more in the world achieve the IDTs it is likely that, by 2015, the continuing disadvantage of Indigenous Peoples by these measures – inappropriate as they may be -- will become more obvious.

The case for Indigenous Peoples has to be primarily a moral one, based on contemporary disadvantage and historic suffering. The special nature of the Commonwealth, now reinforced by the promises of the Harare Commonwealth Declaration, 1991, fits it to promote remedies.

6 Project timescale
This aspect of the project, funded by the Department for International Development, UK, started in January 2001 and will conclude at the end of March 2003. The greater part of the project is being funded by the European Commission and will finish in January 2004. Relevant reports on socioeconomic rights and IDTs are being commissioned for the four expert meetings of the Indigenous Rights in the Commonwealth Project being held in Fiji, India, southern Africa and Guyana. Dr Ben Naanen, of the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria has been commissioned to conduct a case study on the Ogoni by mid-2002 and it is hoped that comparable work will be commissioned among Adivasis in India. An international conference on socioeconomic rights and IDTs will be held in London in March 2003 and a concluding report will appear after that. Comments on the present position paper are welcome.