Indigenous Caucus Committee - 23 July 2003

The Indigenous Caucus Committee held a session on Wednesday July 23rd 2003 and the following points were discussed: The Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a survey on the Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, and the follow-up on the World Conference on Racism.

The session started with a brief update on the Draft Declaration, and the mentioning of an informal Government consultation on the Draft that took place at the UN from the 23rd to the 26th of June 2003 in Geneva. No indigenous representatives participated in the meeting. The consultation reached a consensus among governments that certain articles in the Draft Declaration should be reorganized, and some articles should be added to ones already present.

The committee passed then to the next point on the agenda: a report on the survey on the Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples. The commission responsible for evaluating the results of the survey on national and international actions during the Decade of Indigenous Peoples suggested that the goals proposed were not achieved. Given this, it is not likely that the Draft will be approved. The Indigenous Caucus Committee submitted to the Indigenous delegations a Draft Statement on the Decade to be discussed. No consensus was reached due to a misrepresentation of Indigenous delegations. The discussion was therefore reported to the next session.

Finally, the Indigenous Caucus Committee ended the session with a presentation from the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, of a Draft Proposition for the World Conference on Racism. The Draft Proposition came under the form of a Joint Statement to be discussed during the next session.

No consensus was reached concerning the issues of the Draft Statement on the Decade and the Draft Proposition for the World Conference on Racism during this session of the Indigenous Caucus Committee. These issues will therefore be on the agenda of the next meeting.

By : Sélim Benaissa

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